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A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 




MADEMOISELLE ENTERING ORLEANS 

FROiM THE PICTURE liV M. EUGENE FOULD IN THE SALON OF 1906 



A PRINCESS OF THE 
OLD WORLD 



BY 

ELEANOR C. PRICE 



" Duquel mariage est sortie la tres-belle, tres-excellente et tres-accomplie 
Princesse Anne Marie Louise d'Orl^ans, qui possede en perfection les plus 
rares qualitez qui parent un esprit, et qui font aymer un corps : c'est elle que 
nous nommons ordinairement Mademoiselle, souhaitt^e des plus grands 
Monarques, et aym^e universellement de toute la terre." 



WITH TWENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS 



New York : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

London: METHUEN & CO. 

1907 






/^^/^^ 



CONTENTS 



PART I 
CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Mademoiselle arrives — The Chalais affair — The Montpensier 
marriage — The death of the Duchess — Mademoiselle in her 
nursery — Louis XIII . . . . • • 3 

CHAPTER n 

The new Madame — Her adventures — The fate of Puylaurens — 
The playfellows of Mademoiselle — His Eminence her Godfather . i6 

CHAPTER in 

On the roads — Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chevreuse — The 
affair of the Val-de-Grace — A famous ride — La Rochefoucauld — 
Mademoiselle at Chantilly . . ... 25 

CHAPTER IV 

Mademoiselle in Touraine — Champigny and Richelieu — The 
Duchesse d'Aiguillon and her friends — Fontevrault and Madame 
Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon — A winter of hope . • • 39 

CHAPTER V 

Mademoiselle de Hautefort — Royal sport — " Mon petit mari " — 
The story of Cinq-Mars — The death of Richelieu . ■ • 55 

CHAPTER VI 

The streets of Paris — Corneille — The theatres — The Academy — 
The Hotel de Rambouillet . . ... 69 

CHAPTER VII 

Court mourning — The death of Madame de Saint-Georges— 
Madame de Fiesque — The family of Guise — The death of the King 86 



vi A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 



CHAPTER VIII 



PAGE 



La Bonne Regence — The Superior of the Carmelites — The Due de 
Beaufort and the Importants — The arrival of Madame — The Prin- 
cesse de Conde and Madame de Montbazon — A cold collation — 
Mazarin's triumph . . . ... 97 

CHAPTER IX 

Henrietta of England — The Prince of Wales — A ball at the 
Palais Royal — Mademoiselle's vocation — The Saujon affair — The 
eve of the Fronde . . . . ..112 



PART II 

CHAPTER I 

The causes of the Fronde — Father Vincent — Monsieur le Coad- 
juteur — The riot at Saint-Eustache — A popular Princess — Retz at 
the Palais Royal — The Joiirnee des Barricades . . .125 

CHAPTER II 

Mademoiselle d'Epernon — Mademoiselle du Vigean and the great 
Conde — Mazarinades and Frondeurs — Mademoiselle's ambition . 140 

CHAPTER III 

A royal flight — The Parliament and the Princes — The adventures 
of Madame de Motteville — The blockade of Paris — The Comte and 
Comtesse de Maure . . . ... 149 

CHAPTER IV 

Charenton — The last Coligny — The Peace of Rueil^ Made- 
moiselle's return — The Queen's ball — The arrest of the Princes — 
The siege of Bordeaux — Mademoiselle " furieusement frondeuse " . 160 

CHAPTER V 

Friendship with Cond^ — La Princesse Palatine and Madame de 
Choisy — Royal matches — Cond^ in arms — The question of Orleans 
— A new " Jeanne la Pucelle" . . ... 174 



CONTENTS vii 



CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Mademoiselle Queen of Paris- — The Shrine of Sainte-Genevieve — 
Duke Charles of Lorraine — The Porte Saint-Antoine — The cannon 
of the Bastille — The massacre at the Hotel de Ville — The duel of 
Beaufort and Nemours — Mademoiselle expelled from the Tuileries 
— The end of the Fronde . . . . . 190 



PART III 

CHAPTER I 

The Jacobin friar — The Chateau de Saint-Fargeau — Made- 
moiselle's Court in exile — The Marquise de Thianges — Family 
quarrels — The Due de Neubourg . . . . . 209 

CHAPTER n 

Journeys in Touraine — The restoration of Champigny — Forges- 
les-Eaux — A visit from Madame de Longueville — A practical joke 
— The Princess of Orange — Queen Christina of Sweden . . 223 

CHAPTER HI 

Mademoiselle's religion — The abbeys of Jouarre and Port Royal 
— Mademoiselle's return to the Court — The King and his brother 
— The Cardinal and his nieces — Parisian gaieties — The purchase 
ofEu . . . . . ... 237 

CHAPTER IV 

Sovereign Princess of Dombes — The Duchesse de Montmorency 
— Royal visits to Chambord and Blois — Royal journeys in the south 
— Proclamation of peace and return of Conde — The death of Gaston 
d'Orl^ans , . . . ... 252 

CHAPTER V 

Mademoiselle begins to reflect — The Spanish marriage — Life at 
the Luxembourg — Mademoiselle's portrait gallery — The King of 
Portugal — A second exile . . . . . 270 



viii A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

The title of "Mademoiselle" — Court amusements — At the Luxem- 
bourg — The death of Anne of Austria — The fancy for M. de Lauzun 
— An adventure in the floods — The death of Madame — "C'estvous!" 285 

CHAPTER VH 

Madame de Sevignd's letter — Indignation — Delays and warnings 
— The fatal Thursday — The marriage forbidden . . . 300 

CHAPTER VIH 

The story of a secret marriage — Lauzun's imprisonment — Made- 
moiselle's constancy — Choisy — Freedom and disillusion — The final 
quarrel — Last days and death of Mademoiselle . . .313 

Index . . . . ... 325 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Mademoiselle entering Orleans : from the Picture by M. Eugene Fould in / 

the Salon of 1906, (Copyright) . . . . Frontispiece 

{Photo., Moreau, Paris.) 

FACING PAGE 

Gaston de France, Due d'Orleans . . ... 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Chateau de Blois : Wing built by Gaston d'Orleans 
{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

The Chapel at Champigny . . . ... 

{Photo., Pimbert-Chemineau, Loudun.) 

Henry d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars : from an Engraving by Langlois . 
{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Cardinal de Richelieu : from a Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne in the 
Louvre . . . . ... 

{Photo., Giraudon, Paris.) 

Louis XIII. . . . . ... 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Mademoiselle de Montpensier : from a Miniature by Petitot at S. Ken- 
sington Museum . . . . ... 

Cardinal Mazarin : after a Portrait by Mignard . ... 

Cardinal de Retz . . . . ... 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Louis, Prince de Conde . . . ... 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Henrietta Maria of France, Queen of England : from a Portrait by 

Vandyck at the National Portrait Gallery . . . . 156 

{Photo., Mansell, London.) 

The Duchesse de Chevreuse, as a widow : after a Portrait by Ferdinand . 166 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier : from a Steel Engraving . . .178 

The Palace of the Tuileries : from an Old Print . . . . 191 



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X A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

FACING I'AGK ,/ 

The Duchesse de Longueville . . . ... 228 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

i 
The Palace of the Luxembourg : from an Old Print . . . 248 

Marie Theresa of Austria, Queen of France : after a Portrait by Beaubrun . 273 
{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Mademoiselle de Montpensier : from an Engraving by Nicolas de I'Armessin 286 

Philippe de France, Due d'Orleans . . ... 298 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 

Louis XIV . . . . ... 318 ^ 

{Photo., Neurdein, Paris.) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

THIS book is meant to be a true picture in more or less 
detail, drawn chiefly from contemporary memoirs, of 
French society in the seventeenth century, especially the 
society which is a natural background for the distinguished, 
eccentric personality of Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans, 
Duchesse de Montpensier, known in her own day and ours 
as La Grande Mademoiselle. 

The life of Mademoiselle covers nearly three-quarters of 
the century. If the earlier part of this period has been more 
dwelt upon than the later, it is because people and manners 
in the final years of Louis XIII, under the Regency, and 
during the Wars of the Fronde, are less familiar to English 
readers than those belonging to the actual age of Louis XIV. 
It is also because Mademoiselle herself, picturesque, ad- 
venturous, original, loses much of her characteristic charm 
when she falls once and for ever under the baleful little 
shadow of Lauzun. FTP 



CHIEF AUTHORITIES 



CONTEMPORARY 

Mimoires de Gaston Due d^ Orleans. Edition Petitot et Monmerque. 

Mimoires de Valentin Conrart. ,j „ „ 

Memoires de FAbM de Choisy. „ „ „ 

Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Edition Cheruel. 

MSmoires de Madame de Motteville. Edition Riaux. 

MSmoires du Cardinal de Retz. Edition Champollion-Figeac. 

Memoires du Due de Saint-Simon. Edition Cheruel. 

Memoires du Marquis de Dangeati. 

Lettres de Madame de Sivigne. 

La Galerie de Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. 

Deseription de la Ville de Paris. Germain Brice. 

Les Historiettes de Tallema?it des Reaux. Edition Monmerque. 

MODERN 

Histoire du Cardinal de Riehelieu. G. Hanotaux. 

Etudes Historiques. G. Hanotaux. 

Le Roi ehez la Peine. A. Baschet. 

Histoire de Pranee. Henri Martin. Vols. XI and XH. 

Histoire de Pranee pendant la Minorite de Louis XIV. A. Cheruel. 

Madame de Chevreuse. Victor Cousin. 

Madame de Hautefort. „ „ 

La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville. Victor Cousin. 

Madame de Longueville pendant la Pronde. „ „ 

Life of Louis Prince of Condi. Lord Mahon. 

La Miser e au Temps de la Pronde. A. Feillet. 

Extravagants et Originaux dti z/'"' Sieele. P. de Musset. 

Causeries du Lundi. Vols. HI and V. Sainte-Beuve. 

Les Ennemis de Racine au ly'"' Sieele. F. Deltour. 



xiv A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Lafetmesse de la Grande Mademoiselle. Arvede Barine. 

Louis XIV et la Grande Mademoiselle. „ „ 

La Duchesse de Montmorency. M. R. Monlaur. 

La Rochefoucauld. A. Bourdeau. (Grands Ecrivains frangais.) 

Corneille. G. Lanson. ,, d •>■> 

Madame de Sevigne. G. Boissier. „ „ v 



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PART I 

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 

1627-48 



A PRINCESS OF THE 
OLD WORLD 



CHAPTER I 

I 626- I 63 5 

" And cymbals glorious 
Swinging uproarious 
In the gorgeous turrets 
Of Notre Dame." 

"And the flare of the bonfires died down into the flickering 
tapers that dimly lit the funerals." 

MADEMOISELLE ARRIVES— THE CHALAIS AFFAIR — THE MONTPEN- 
SIER MARRIAGE— THE DEATH OF THE DUCHESS— MADEMOISELLE 
IN HER NURSERY — LOUIS XIII. 

ON the 29th of May, in the year 1627, the cannon of 
noisy Paris were thundering, the bells clanging and 
clashing, for the birth of a grandchild of France. The news 
ran through the narrow, crowded streets, where the citizens 
stopped to laugh and gossip till scattered aside by some 
great lady's plunging coach, some splendid courtier with his 
train of men-at-arms and lackeys, on the way to offer con- 
gratulations at the Louvre. 

On the quays of the Seine, on the Pont Neuf, the new 
thoroughfare, not blocked by houses like the other bridges, 
where King Henry IV on horseback kept guard over 
" Paris, sa grand'-ville," crowds gathered with their heads 
turned towards the palace, whose high roofs, stately and 
glittering in the May sunshine, sheltered the new baby and 

3 



4 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

its mother. The crowds were pleased and good-tempered, 
though the desired prince had failed to arrive. Madame 
la Duchesse d'Orl6ans had done her duty, and as quickly as 
possible. In the meanwhile, Paris took "Mademoiselle" to 
its light heart and capricious fancy. 

The marriage of Monsieur, the King's brother, with Marie 
de Bourbon, Duchesse de Montpensier, the richest heiress in 
Europe, was one of the early triumphs of Richelieu. When 
he became First Minister, the kingdom of France was repre- 
sented in Europe by two inglorious young men, Louis XIII 
and his heir presumptive, Gaston, Due d'Anjou ; and there 
was little hope of an heir apparent, the King having been 
married some years without children, French royalty seemed 
therefore at a low ebb, from a personal point of view. With 
regard to State affairs, the work of those two clever and 
practical men, Henry IV and Sully, as to the strengthening 
of the King's supremacy, the centralisation of France, the 
beginnings of her foreign and financial policy, the checking 
of a rampant nobility, had been largely undone, especially 
in the last matter, by the undisciplined, favourite-ridden 
years of Marie de M6dicis' regency. The struggle for com- 
mand at home and abroad was taken up by Richelieu, and 
carried on through great difficulties, as far as the princes 
and nobles were concerned. It seems doubtful whether the 
general advance in royal despotism and centralisation, accom- 
panied by heavy taxes, was good for the people of France 
in the long run ; but Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV, saw no 
alternative except anarchy. In such a world of stormy 
rivalry, some one had to rule ; they determined that the King 
should be the ruler. 

At Mademoiselle's birth, the struggle was still proceeding ; 
she lived on into a changed France, where revolts and con- 
spiracies were things of the past, the Roi Soleil shining in 
all his glory. 

In 1626, Cardinal de Richelieu had been First Minister 
for two years, and was not yet at the zenith of his power. 
Louis XIII was five-and-twenty, and of a character most 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 5 

unattractive to the French, though they respected him as 
"Louis le Juste." He was brave and straightforward, a 
passionate sportsman, but reserved, shy, self-diffident, in 
manners and temperament the very opposite to his father, 
Henry IV. Of a gloomy disposition and indifferent health, 
a stammerer, easily bored, caring for no one on earth but the 
few young men who were his friends, he was a disagreeable 
and disappointing husband to Queen Anne, the proud and 
lovely Spaniard. Years before, she had been attracted by 
the young King's dark beauty, but now, long unloved, 
neglected, childless, the object of suspicions not all un- 
justified, there were few women more unhappy. 

France wanted an heir, a royal child of her own, and this, 
even more than the King's little care for popularity, accounts 
for the rise of a party which set its hopes and affections on 
his brother Gaston, a handsome, pleasant, intelligent, weak, 
vicious boy of eighteen. Henry IV's youngest son, he was 
the spoilt favourite of his mother, Marie de M^dicis ; and 
she — a curious touch of the times — had provided him with a 
bad fairy godmother in the person of Marguerite de Valois, 
her husband's divorced wife. His name of Gaston had been 
borne by no prince since the famous young hero Gaston 
de Foix, Due de Nemours, nephew of Louis XH. Not any 
heroic virtues, however, but rather the vices of the Valois, 
were bestowed on this new Gaston by his godmother. 

As to an easy conscience and popular manners and morals, 
he was his father's son, and it was no difficult task to set 
him up, the heir presumptive, as a rival to his brother the 
King. Once married, and the father of kings to be. Monsieur 
would easily become the most powerful man in France. 
Several of the great nobles, who hated law and loved dis- 
order, certain princes of the blood royal, each with his own 
ambition, and the wild crowd of general society, checked in 
its desperate race after adventure and amusement by the 
dull indifference of the King — all were ready to throw them- 
selves into the new young Court of the future. No dulness 
with Monsieur : he was alive to the tips of his restless 



6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

fingers, to the ends of his curhng hair on which the feathered 
hat was perched jauntily. He was always whistling ; he 
could not even stand still to have his coat buttoned. Some- 
times he was like a real Prince Charming, friendly and 
delightful. No gloomy palace walls or damp forests for 
him : he must see life, must be amused, must go out among 
the people. His was a curious mind, constant to nothing 
and to nobody ; at his worst, he was a mere flibbertigibbet 
of a prince, an irresponsible sprig of royalty. 

For the good of France, and as a check on Henry, Prince 
de Conde, who considered himself next in the succession, 
Cardinal de Richelieu and the Queen-mother intended 
Monsieur to marry, Louis XHI, not without pangs, gave 
his consent ; he had at least one of his father's royal virtues 
— loyalty, however unwilling, to a great minister ; and also, 
to do him justice, never was there a king who identified him- 
self more entirely with his kingdom. 

Monsieur was ready to marry, but he and his friends had 
views of their own. They decided that he ought to marry 
a foreign princess : he would then, they thought, be more 
independent of his brother ; and when the King died, an 
event neither unwished nor unexpected, he would have 
foreign allies as well as a strong party in France, 

Richelieu's views differed from theirs. He intended 
Gaston, single or married, to remain the King's subject, and 
had already chosen Mademoiselle de Montpensier as his 
bride. This was a marriage which would bring about no 
cabals in the country, would in no way affect the King's 
power, and presented a thousand advantages. The young 
Princess was descended, through the Dukes of Montpensier, 
from the elder branch of the House of Bourbon, who traced 
their descent from Saint-Louis through Robert de Clermont, 
his sixth son. Marie de Bourbon, their one representative, 
besides being Duchess in her own right of Montpensier, 
Chatellerault, and Saint-Fargeau, was Sovereign Princess of 
Dombes and La Roche-sur-Yon, and possessed many other 
fine estates, marquisates, counties, baronies, as well as an 




GASTON dp: FRANCE, DUC DORI,EANS 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 7 

immense fortune in funded property. It was a marriage 
which would give satisfaction to the great House of Lorraine, 
always to be reckoned with. Charles, Due de Guise, was 
the second husband of Henriette de Joyeuse, Mademoiselle 
de Montpensier's mother. 

The inner circle of Monsieur's friends, with his late 
governor, the Marechal d'Ornano, at their head, and en- 
couraged by the Due de Vendome and his brother the 
Grand Prior, sons of Henry IV by Gabrielle d'Estrees, went 
so far in conspiring against this marriage that they threatened 
the life of Richelieu. Of the several foolish young men who 
were concerned in this conspiracy, the unfortunate Comte 
de Chalais, Master of the Wardrobe to the King, was the 
most terribly punished. He had been drawn in by his 
passion for Madame de Chevreuse, the Queen's friend, who 
hated Richelieu on her own account, and was furiously 
opposed to a marriage which filled the childless Queen with 
jealous dread. The whole plot, with all its double intrigues 
and ramifications, even with accusations against the Queen 
herself, suggesting that the life of Louis was also threatened, 
and that after his death she intended to marry his brother, 
came to the Cardinal's knowledge by means of his spies, 
then and always legion. Monsieur was called upon to answer 
for himself He confessed everything and betrayed every- 
body. Some charitable writers say that he lost his nerve; 
others, that with perfect coolness of head he made the best 
bargain possible for himself. His one excuse is that he was 
only a spoilt, ill-taught boy of eighteen. The Queen's in- 
dignant denials convinced Louis that she had been atro- 
ciously slandered. Richelieu probably knew this very well 
at the time. D'Ornano, the Vendome Princes, and others 
were imprisoned ; some of them died in prison. Madame 
de Chevreuse was exiled from the Court and then from 
France. 

Jealousy of Chalais and the King's former affection for 
him, quite as much as a prudent fear of touching greater 
personages, seems to have been Richelieu's chief reason for 



8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

making him the scapegoat of the whole affair. His head 
was chopped off at Nantes with circumstances of horrible 
cruelty. In the same city, a few days earlier, Monsieur had 
been hurriedly married to the unfortunate girl whom the 
Cardinal and the Queen-mother had chosen, Richelieu him- 
self performed the ceremony. 

As the price of his obedience in " ranging himself," Gaston 
became Duke of Orleans and of Chartres, and Count of 
Blois. His household almost equalled the King's in number 
and magnificence. He had a guard of eighty men in his 
livery, and four-and-twenty Suisses who marched before him, 
tambour battant, on Sundays and holy days. He and his 
wife had their apartments at the Louvre, where, in the 
intervals of court ballets, comedies, and hunting parties, 
during that winter of uncertain hopes and fears, courtiers 
hurried scuffling through the labyrinth of dirty passages to 
pay their respects to the rising sun. Monsieur and Madame 
were exceedingly happy and triumphant. He had all that 
heart could desire in the way of money and amusement, and 
the fate of his former friends had not troubled him for a day. 
She looked forward confidently to being the mother of a 
future King of France. It was some additional satisfaction, 
possibly, that neither the King nor the Queen could very 
well hide the jealous sadness such a prospect caused them. 

The best known description of Madame — physionomie de 
inouton — does not suggest beauty, though old writers say 
she was beautiful. Perhaps the truth is that her looks and 
disposition were both lamb-like ; but the courtiers and the 
gossips took a different view, declaring that she was fiere 
comma un dragon. This means, probably, that she was a 
modest, dignified woman, who fearlessly showed her dislike 
of the extreme freedom of manners that lay just beneath 
the top crust of courtly affectation. She was fond of 
Monsieur, who had his attractive side, and did her best, 
during their few months of married life, to make a man of 
him. She tried to please him by indulgences she could easily 
afford, her fortune being largely at her own disposal. Find- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 9 

ing him, through the influence of his friends, a little reserved 
and cold, she hoped to draw him nearer to her by presents 
of money, bestowed whenever he came back from the gaming 
table in a bad temper. Gambling was one of his chief re- 
sources during that winter, and he had one or two other 
characteristic amusements. Sometimes he spent the night 
wandering in disguise, with a few gentlemen, in the dark and 
dangerous streets of Paris. Any house lighted up for an 
entertainment was liable to be entered by these uninvited 
guests, and scandals were frequently the consequence. If 
Madame knew of these expeditions, she felt no alarm, ex- 
cept for Monsieur's personal safety. No other fears troubled 
her generous, unsuspicious mind. 

Monsieur had worthier tastes and more innocent games. 
He collected pictures, medals, bibelots, and all kinds of 
antiquities. He liked botany, studied herbs and simples, 
had flowers painted from nature in a large book by Jules 
Donnabella. He had meetings of his friends — Puylaurens 
conspicuous among them — for discussions either serious or 
grotesque. Sometimes they held councils of " Vauriennerie," 
at which they managed the affairs of an imaginary kingdom- 
Monsieur himself made the map of this strange country — 
possibly the original of Mile de Scudery's carte du Pays 
de Tendre — gave names to its provinces, cities, and rivers, 
and appointed its great officers, to whom he wrote despatches. 
One of them was the Abbe de la Riviere, already his 
favourite ; another was Antoine de Bourbon, Comte de 
Moret, his half-brother, who is said to have been more like 
Henry IV than any other of his children. Historians say 
that this young man, brought up as an ecclesiastic, but a 
brilliant soldier, fell in Gaston's quarrel at Castelnaudary. 
Tradition, which the paintings at Fontevrault seem to prove 
worthy of belief, saves him from that rout, carries him away 
into Italy, and gives him sixty years more of life as Brother 
John Baptist, a hermit at Gardelles, near Saumur, in the 
green depth of Anjou. 

Winter and spring passed in this way for the two royal 



lo A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

households in the Louvre : on one side, half-shown jealousy 
and dismal fear ; on the other, triumph and hope without 
any reserve. The weeks travelled on leaden feet for 
Monsieur, with all his pastimes. At last, instead of the 
expected prince, Mademoiselle arrived ; and the most part 
of France, /aute de mieux, received her very well. Princess 
Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans was popular from her cradle. 
She was a terrible disappointment to her father, for she did 
not increase his consequence in the State. The Queen- 
mother and Richelieu, as well as all those who had lately 
paid court to Monsieur, were furious with the Fates who had 
deprived them of a future dauphin. The King and Queen 
and their personal friends — entirely distinct parties, for 
there was no sympathy between them — found themselves 
for once in a state of pleasant agreement. They had not 
wished for a nephew, and they gave a very kind welcome to 
their baby niece. For once Louis XIII could look out on 
Paris with a smile ; the joy of the good Parisians, the ring- 
ing of the bells for this new princess, found echoes in his 
melancholy soul. 

A few days later, in the first week of June, those joy-bells 
were followed by a funeral chime, for Madame was dead. 
The grief was universal, except among Monsieur's favourites, 
Puylaurens and others, who feared her good influence on 
their master. The news touched court and city, probably, 
more nearly than any since King Henry was stabbed by 
Francois Ravaillac, the royal coach being blocked by wine- 
carts and hay-waggons at the corner of the Rue de la 
Ferronnerie, on the 14th of May, seventeen years before. 

The young Duchess was buried in royal state at Saint- 
Denis. The King and all the princes assisted at the magni- 
ficent ceremony, and the Queen was present incognito. This 
being unusual, her motives were a good deal discussed. But 
Anne of Austria was by no means bad at heart, and it was 
not strange if, after suffering the torments of jealousy and 
even hatred for so many months, she was touched by the 
pathetic end of her young sister-in-law. Still she was 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS ii 

Spanish, and she never quite forgave her own sufferings 
throughout that winter. There were days long after when 
Mademoiselle, her niece, felt their consequences. 

The persons who grieved most sincerely for Madame's 
untimely death were her mother and her mother-in-law. 
Monsieur's sorrow was noisy, but fleeting ; the marriage, 
after all, had been forced upon him, and he consoled himself 
easily with his old amusements, soon varied by a fresh con- 
spiracy. Puylaurens, Le Coigneux and the rest took care of 
that. To Madame de Guise the loss was heartbreaking and 
irreparable. The young Duchess had been the most obedient 
and loving of daughters ; besides this, her marriage had 
given the House of Lorraine a good place in the fight for 
honours and possessions, always going on. And last, possibly 
least, Madame de Guise had made a wedding gift to her 
daughter of her great diamond, one of the finest known, 
given to her father the Due de Joyeuse by Henry HI, and 
valued at eighty thousand crowns. This diamond passed 
with all the rest of Marie de Bourbon's possessions to her 
little daughter, who, at least when a child, thought rather 
scornfully of a grandmother who was not a queen. 

Marie de Medicis, fat, unwise, ill-judging if also ill-used, 
weak, violent-tempered, was a kind-hearted woman with 
strong family affections. She had pressed on her son's 
marriage and rejoiced in it, for personal as well as political 
reasons. His riotous living troubled her, if only for the sake 
of his constitution ; and she sincerely mourned a daughter- 
in-law who seemed likely to influence him for good. How- 
ever, the short-lived experiment being over, there remained 
Mademoiselle. Her grandmother, the Queen, took charge at 
once of the child, whose fortune and estates were formally 
held in trust by her father during her minority. 

Mademoiselle owed a great deal to Queen Marie de 
Medicis, and realised the debt, though she was not four years 
old when her grandmother was driven out of France, after 
the Journee des Dupes, never to return. She owed her a child- 
hood watched over by a charming woman, the Marquise de 



12 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Saint-Georges, who had an almost hereditary right, however, 
to command a royal nursery. 

All the children of Henry IV, the sons till they were eight 
years old and passed on to a governor, the daughters much 
longer, had been brought up by her mother, Madame de 
Montglat, one of those rare good women in a brilliant, coarse, 
unprincipled time, of whom even court gossips could not tell 
a disreputable story. She was the beloved " Maman Ga " of 
Louis XIII, his brother Nicolas, Due d'Orleans, who died a 
child, and Gaston, Due dAnjou ; his sisters Elisabeth, Queen 
of Spain, Christine, Duchess of Savoy, Henriette- Marie, 
Queen of England, la Reine Malheureuse, youngest and un- 
happiest of all. In the days of Madame de Montglat they 
were a lovely little family of most attractive children. 

Madame de Saint-Georges, as a young married woman, 
had been much in their nursery. She afterwards became 
lady-in-waiting, first to the Duchess of Savoy, then to the 
Queen of England, and at this time had very lately returned 
to France. It was in 1626 that Charles I insisted on sending 
back the French members of his wife's household, and the 
departure of Madame de Saint-Georges from London had 
been very stormy. 

She now took charge of the new grandchild of France, 
also the greatest heiress in Europe, treated, for both reasons, 
with the highest honours the Court could bestow. A house- 
hold of much dignity having been organised for Mademoi- 
selle, she was carried in her swaddling clothes along the 
great gallery, lately finished, that led from the Louvre to 
the Tuileries. Here she was established in a suite of splendid 
rooms, looking west towards the formal gardens of the 
palace, though divided from them by a street. The gardens 
extended as far as a wild sandy warren where the royal 
kennels were, now the Place de la Concorde. The Tuileries 
was still the fantastic, original palace which Philibert de I'Orme 
had built for Queen Catherine de M^dicis. 

The world wagged with considerable violence round those 
high walls, round the cradle where Mademoiselle, carefully 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 13 

watched night and day, slept and laughed and played with 
her first toys and grew quickly into the fair, blue-eyed beauty 
of her childhood. Naturally, it was long before she knew 
anything of the State intrigues and family quarrels which 
surrounded her. She did not even miss the grandmother 
who had taken her mother's place when Marie de Medicis 
ceased to come, driving across Paris from her own new 
palace of the Luxembourg, to visit the child at the Tuileries. 
Monsieur had disappeared a few weeks before, after violently 
taking his mother's part in her quarrel with the King and 
with Richelieu — once her slave, then her ally, now, for him- 
self and the State, her deadly enemy and persecutor. 

The visits of a grandmother, however kind, a rather 
worried, ponderous lady of fifty-seven, with Madame de 
Saint-Georges as a go-between, were more easy to forget 
than those of Mademoiselle's lively and picturesque young 
father. She had seen him constantly, and loved him dearly. 
He had left the Louvre after his wife's death, but in the 
intervals of his varied flirtations and amusements, and when 
he was not playing at war with the English or making love 
to a future Madame — greatly to the royal displeasure — at 
the Court of Lorraine, he was often with his little daughter 
at the Tuileries, and she found him a charming companion. 
He played games with her, whistled and sang to her — he 
was a musician, like most of his family — taught her songs 
with gay refrains, such as they sang in the streets, sometimes 
about himself — none the less enjoyable — sometimes about 
the Eminence rouge^ the ogre of the Court, Maitre Gonin, 
Cardinal de Richelieu. Madame de Saint-Georges may have 
had some difficulty in driving " Ton^ ton, ton, Monsieur 
Ribaudon, tutaine, tuton, tutaine," and " Guillemette, Ion Ian 
la^' and " Landerirette, landerira" and other refrains de vaude- 
ville hardly fit for little girls, out of Mademoiselle's mouth 
and memory. 

The child, quick-tempered, proud, and constant to those 
she loved, understood easily enough who was to blame for 
her father's disappearance. She was very angry with the 



14 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

King and the Cardinal ; she kicked and screamed when her 
royal uncle and aunt sent for her to visit them at the Louvre. 
Her feeling towards Richelieu never changed, but she soon 
forgave her uncle. Louis XIII, when not unbearably weighed 
down by the responsibilities of kingdom and family, had 
qualities which made him a very good playfellow. Mademoi- 
selle liked him personally, and always valued his kindness, 

Anne of Austria, too, was kind, but Mademoiselle never 
loved her ; there was always some impassable barrier be- 
tween the Spanish Queen — forced to walk warily by her 
husband's dislike and Richelieu's politics strangely lined 
with passion — and the French Princess, who even as a child, 
frank, haughty, outspoken, was an incarnation of the Bourbon 
temper. 

But the King loved games as well as his brother, different 
as the two men were. He not only wrote verses and com- 
posed songs — unlike Gaston's — and arranged ballets of the 
most delightful kind, with masks and fancy dresses, to be 
danced by all those lovely ladies to whose charms he was 
so oddly indifferent, but he was a confectioner, a gardener, 
a maker of nets, a worker in leather and metal. Then he 
loved natural history, had a fine collection of birds, and the 
best horses and dogs in Europe. He was the last King of 
France who cared for the ancient sport of falconry. He 
could tell stories without end, if he chose ; and being still, 
with all his bored looks, something of the enfant enfantissime 
of his young days, it is well to be believed that he amused 
himself and his little niece by making castles and coaches 
of cards, or swimming feather boats with a cargo of roses, 
" disant que ce sont navires qui viennent des Indes et de 
Goa." 

These visits to the Louvre, and afterwards to Fontaine- 
bleau, with a fresh round of amusements, and with the 
pleasure of feeling herself a person of an immense import- 
ance disputed by no other royal children, carried Mademoi- 
selle through the few years that passed before Monsieur 
came back to his country. She was then not eight years 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 15 

old, a brilliantly pretty little girl. She knew little or nothing 
of her father's past doings, of the history of his wars against 
the King, of the noble lives that had been sacrificed in his 
quarrel ; but her quick ears heard and her heart and tongue 
resented Richelieu's first conditions, disgraceful enough, as 
to the reconciliation. 

They took her to meet Gaston at Limours. He, with his 
charming fancy, took off the cordon bleu which distinguished 
him from the gentlemen of his suite, and the child was 
asked, "Which is Monsieur?" She flew straight into his 
arms, and the worthless young fellow was touched with a 
marvellous joy. 



CHAPTER II 

"J'aurai toujours au cceur ^crite 
Sur toutes fleurs la Marguerite." 

THE NEW MADAME — HER ADVENTURES — THE FATE OF PUYLAURENS 
— THE PLAYFELLOWS OF MADEMOISELLE — HIS EMINENCE HER GOD- 
FATHER 

MADEMOISELLE had now a stepmother, not much 
more than double her own age. But Louis and the 
Cardinal were unforgiving, and Gaston's return from exile 
had not meant the acknowledgment of his new wife. It is 
characteristic that though he was really in love with Princess 
Marguerite of Lorraine, and though he had married her, 
twice over, under very romantic circumstances, he came back 
happily without her, sacrificing, as usual, what was most dear 
to the ease and convenience of the moment. 

He confided the whole story to Mademoiselle, who listened 
with delight, being already a strong champion of her young 
stepmother and the forbidden marriage. Monsieur had fallen 
in love with Princess Marguerite at Nancy, at the Court of 
her brother, Duke Charles IV, before she was sixteen. He 
had married her secretly, two years later, when he was him- 
self an exile. Most of her relations were flattered by the 
alliance, but her brother the Duke could not give his consent 
without bringing down the power of France on Lorraine, the 
King and the Cardinal being strongly opposed to a marriage 
which would strengthen the hands of their enemy, Spain, 
and of all those, within and without the kingdom, whose 
sympathies were with the Queen-mother and Monsieur. 

Outside politics, the Duke of Lorraine's consent was not so 
necessary, as his father the Prince de Vaudemont was alive 
and favourable. And there were other strong influences at 

i6 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 17 

work. The Sieur de Puylaurens, who pulled all the strings of 
Gaston's life at this time, had fallen desperately in love with 
Madame Henriette de Lorraine, Princesse de Phalsbourg, 
Marguerite's elder sister. She, knowing his influence on his 
master, made use of him as a stepping-stone for the family 
ambition — to see the young Marguerite, at no distant day, 
Queen of France. 

Things were brought to a point by the energy of the 
Abbess of Remiremont, a Lorraine Princess and aunt of 
Marguerite. She had built a convent of Benedictine nuns 
at Nancy, and she arranged that the lovers should meet 
there, at seven o'clock on a winter's evening. A Benedictine 
monk was waiting in the chapel, and they were quietly 
married ; the witnesses being the Prince de Vaudemont, 
Gaston's half-brother the Comte de Moret, Puylaurens, and 
Madame de la Neuvillette, Princess Marguerite's governess. 
Immediately after the marriage Monsieur fled, " aux 
flambeaux," leaving his bride behind him, and escaped 
to his mother at Brussels, where neither the Duke of 
Lorraine's " despair " nor the anger of the King and Cardinal 
could reach him. 

He and his young wife did not meet again for many 
months, and then only for a few hours. After this followed 
his unhappy expedition into France, which ended in the defeat 
of Castelnaudary, the sacrifice of so many brave lives for 
him, and the utter ruin of the great House of Montmorency. 
Richelieu's strength and terrible severity, the death of Henry 
de Montmorency, noblest and most brilliant of Frenchmen, 
on the scaffold at Toulouse, shook French society sharply 
to its centre, and made nothing but submission possible for 
Gaston, unless he chose to remain in exile, with Queen 
Marie de Medicis, for the rest of his brother's life. 

Everybody knew what was likely to be one of Richelieu's 
conditions of peace — the declaring the Lorraine marriage 
null and void. Even Mademoiselle in her nursery had 
known that and resented it. In fact, it was not long after the 
Languedoc campaign that the King's army entered Lorraine 



i8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and besieged Nancy. The Duke could not hold out long 
against his suzerain, except by throwing himself into the 
arms of Spain and seeing his duchy divided between the two 
Powers. Louis would soon have had his way as to the 
marriage. Nancy was to be surrendered in ten days and the 
young Princess placed in the hands of the King. But they 
all reckoned without Madame Marguerite, who had no inten- 
tion of giving up her husband at the bidding of King, 
Cardinal, or even Pope. 

Her brother, the Cardinal de Lorraine, had asked permis- 
sion of the besiegers to leave Nancy with his suite. She 
determined to escape in disguise as one of his gentlemen. 
With a spirit worthy of Madame de Chevreuse or Madame de 
Longueville, she dressed herself in men's clothes, clapped on 
a black wig over her fair hair, darkened her skin by rubbing 
in soot, and went at five o'clock in the morning, as the old 
memoirs tell us, to say adieu to Madame de Remiremont at 
the Benedictine convent. The nuns, singing their office in 
the dimly lit chapel, looked up, and their voices quavered 
with terror at the sight of an armed man. But Madame 
soon reassured them. They prayed with her for a successful 
journey, and after affectionate farewells the girl left them, 
slipping away in rising daylight to the coach in which 
she was to begin her journey. 

In passing through the royal army she had a narrow 
escape : the passports of the Cardinal's suite were examined, 
and if the right officer had performed this duty, he would 
certainly have recognised the Princess, whom he knew by 
sight. But M. du Chatelier was in bed at that early hour, and 
the young Duchess in her disguise passed unarrested. When 
safely through the camp, she mounted and rode about forty 
miles without stopping, out of Lorraine territory to Thion- 
ville, which was in the hands of Spain. Before entering the 
town she sent one of her two servants with a message to the 
Governor, M. de Wilthz, and in the meanwhile, dead tired, 
she lay down on the grass near the gate. The sentinel 
looked laughing at the dark boy, and remarked that this 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 19 

young cadet was not used to long rides. The Governor sent 
down in haste, and his wife received the fugitive with tender 
respect, providing her with clothes until her own baggage was 
sent after her. She travelled on to Namur, where Monsieur 
joyfully met her and conveyed her to Brussels. 

After some time, Cardinal de Richelieu doing his best to 
have the first marriage declared null and void, Monsieur and 
Madame were solemnly married again at Brussels by the 
Archbishop of Malines. This marriage was confirmed and 
approved by the Doctors of the Faculty of Louvain. Thus 
ecclesiastical law was satisfied ; and the Pope never gave his 
consent to the nullifying of the marriage, even when the 
Church authorities in France, under Richelieu's orders, pro- 
nounced a decree of separation. Monsieur remained faithful 
to his wife, although he bowed to the storm so far as to live 
in France for several years without her. At first, the King 
allowed him to send her a handsome pension, but this 
stopped when war was declared with Spain. Marie de 
Medicis, herself in serious difficulties, could not help her 
daughter-in-law, and Madame seems to have lived on the 
charity of the Spanish Court till the death of her French 
persecutors. Then, at last, she took her right place in her 
husband's country ; but the charm and the spirit of her youth 
had passed away. 

Monsieur's return to France, married or unmarried, was 
looked upon by Louis XIII and Richelieu as a political 
necessity. The Cardinal brought it about by intriguing with 
Puylaurens, who, having quarrelled with Madame de Phals- 
bourg, was not unwilling to make terms for himself and his 
master. Richelieu's first plan, if he could have done away 
with the Lorraine marriage, was to make a match between 
Monsieur and his own niece^ Madame de Combalet, after- 
wards created Duchesse d'Aiguillon, an ambitious woman, 
whose airs of devotion were remarkable, even in that age of 
extremes. Mademoiselle justly hits off this plan as "shameful 
and ridiculous," and it seems that everybody agreed with her. 
The suggestion was one of Richelieu's few mistakes. 



20 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

In Mademoiselle's childish eyes, the return of her charming 
young father was something like a triumph. As long as he 
was in Paris he devoted himself to her amusement. He 
arranged a ballet specially for her, the royal dances being too 
grown-up for people of eight years old. This ballet, a 
" dance of pygmies," was composed of little princesses, and 
girls and boys of quality, magnificently dressed. The 
figures and steps were easy, and the " entrees," with which the 
ballet was diversified, were suited to the company. Cages 
full of birds were let loose in the ballroom. Flying wildly 
about, a bird caught itself in the frills of Mademoiselle 
Claire-Clemence de Maill6-Brez6, the Cardinal's niece, after- 
wards the wife of the great Cond6 and the heroine of 
Bordeaux. She was not heroic on this occasion, and her 
shrieks and tears made the whole company scream with 
laughter. 

Mademoiselle was a good deal flattered by the attention 
of M. de Puylaurens, who had been rewarded with a dukedom 
and peerage for his services in bringing Monsieur back to 
France. He had also received a wife at the Cardinal's hands 
— Mademoiselle de Pontchateau, cousin of His Eminence — 
and to all appearance was high in favour. He gained Made- 
moiselle's heart by treating her with the ceremony due to a 
grown-up person, considerately sweetened by large presents 
of confitures. But Puylaurens, like so many others who 
incautiously trusted themselves at Court when the Cardinal 
still doubted their loyalty or had anything in their past lives 
to forgive, speedily fell from his high estate. Only a few 
weeks had passed when he was arrested and taken to 
Vincennes. There he died a few months later, another 
victim of Richelieu's unsparing vengeance. Some said that 
he was poisoned by eating " champignons du bois de Vin- 
cennes " ; the same thing had been said of other prisoners, 
the Mar^chal d'Ornano, the Grand Prieur de Vendome ; 
but it seems that the damp, unwholesome chill of the vaulted 
dungeons of Vincennes was quite sufficiently murderous. 

Monsieur took the disgrace and death of his friend with 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 21 

a cheerful indifference, and retired soon after to his estates 
in the West. Mademoiselle, who was always rather the 
child of France, the granddaughter of Henry IV, than the 
daughter of the Due d'Orleans, remained with Madame 
de Saint-Georges and various young companions at the 
Tuileries. A singular figure in her surroundings was a pet 
dwarf, "the smallest ever seen," with an alarmingly large 
nose. Ursule Matton was her name. 

Among the young girls who were Mademoiselle's play- 
fellows at this time, and her friends and acquaintances 
always, one at least was of legitimate royal blood — 
Mademoiselle de Longueville, afterwards married to Henri, 
Due de Nemours, only and spoilt child of that typical 
French noble and very good-natured man, the Due de 
Longueville, by his first marriage with Louise de Bourbon, 
granddaughter of the first Prince de Conde. He married, 
in 1642, a second wife half his own age, the beautiful and 
famous Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, daughter of Henry 
Prince de Conde and Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency. 
Mademoiselle de Bourbon, the adored angel of the Court, 
eight years older than Mademoiselle de Montpensier, was 
never either her playfellow or her friend. Mademoiselle's 
hates were as cordial as her loves, and in these days she 
detested the House of Conde. She was very fond of 
Mademoiselle de Longueville, a clever, sharp-tongued girl ; 
they were always joking and laughing together ; but her 
special affection was given to Mademoiselle d'Epernon, whose 
mother, Gabrielle-Angelique de Bourbon, was a daughter of 
Henry IV and Henriette d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil, 
and who caused her the greatest sorrow, some years later, 
by becoming a Carmelite nun. 

Others among Mademoiselle's early friends were the 
young daughters of Timoleon de Daillon, Comte du Lude, 
who had been for a short time governor of Monsieur. 
Strange legends of the Middle Ages hung round the name 
of Daillon, and even now they haunt the neighbourhood of 
Le Lude, in Anjou, where the splendid old chateau, long 



22 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

passed away from the ancient name, still stands above the 
Loir. There was also Charlotte de Ranee, with whom 
Mademoiselle kept up a lifelong friendship. Her wild 
brother, the notorious Abbe Armand de Ranee, afterwards 
the reformer of La Trappe, attended many years later, not 
long after his own tragical conversion, the sad death-bed of 
Monsieur. It was with his advice and help that Mademoi- 
selle, in advancing age, made various charitable foundations 
on the estates left to her by the greed of Madame de 
Montespan. 

These young people and many others played together at 
the Tuileries and danced before the King and Queen at the 
Louvre, enjoying life from day to day with all the energy of 
their country and time, with no serious interests beyond 
balls and comedies, dress and toys and sugar-plums, and 
very little trouble of lessons. Mademoiselle, at least, was 
let off easily under the light authority of Madame de Saint- 
Georges. She could read, write, dance, and ride ; that was 
all. And for a girl of Mademoiselle's lively wits, with no 
turn and no necessity for classical learning, it appears to 
have been enough. She could appreciate Corneille, and 
knew how to make his ideals her own. She had an instinc- 
tive knowledge of what a princess ought to be. She was 
intelligent in matters of business. And never, in youth or 
old age, with a restless, imperious temper and plenty of 
foolish fancies and ambitions, was there anything mean or 
small about Mademoiselle. 

As a child, the one person who gave her serious annoy- 
ance was the red-robed ogre, Richelieu. He moved in a 
Court where no one liked him and every one feared him — a 
tall, slight, wasted figure, with white hair, dark pointed 
beard, and moustache brushed up sharply. The long thin 
hand was of iron, without Henry IV's velvet glove, and 
might at any moment, moved by some secret spring of 
information, dart down on some unhappy courtier and whisk 
him off to Vincennes or the Bastille. Mademoiselle hated 
Richelieu, not alone for the sake of her father and his 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 23 

friends. He had a way of injuring her young royal dignity 
by treating her as " a httle girl." At nine years old, she had 
to go through a terrible ceremony of baptism ; she had, of 
course, been baptised as an infant, but this was the public 
christening. The Queen was her godmother, the Cardinal 
her godfather. This alone hurt her pride ; but when he 
gave her good advice, and promised to marry her well, he 
became quite insupportable. She would not have been 
absolutely displeased, perhaps, had she known that at this 
ceremony of her baptism the Cardinal narrowly escaped 
assassination, and from the hands of a future Cardinal — no 
less a personage than the Abbe de Retz, then a wild scamp 
of two-and-twenty. 

It is no great wonder that Richelieu, with the fate of 
France in his hands, with personal enemies all round him and 
no supporter to depend on but the King, with the noises of 
war rolling more and more loudly round and over the frontiers 
of the kingdom, could not give much time or thought to 
pleasing women and children. Still, he had a taste in toys, 
if we may judge by a present he made to his niece, Claire- 
Clemence de Maille-Breze. This was a little room com- 
pletely furnished and inhabited by dolls ; a lady in bed, a 
baby, a grandmother, a nurse and other servants. All these 
could be dressed and undressed, and gave immense satisfac- 
tion, if not to Mademoiselle, to many of her young contem- 
poraries. 

The Comte de Brienne's queer story of Cardinal de 
Richelieu shows the odd mixture of love and hatred which 
moved him where Anne of Austria was concerned. Had the 
Queen encouraged the Cardinal, the course of history might 
have been altered. So people said at the time. The long 
war with Spain, for instance, might never have begun. One 
can hardly believe that even Anne's singular charm would 
have had power to turn Richelieu from his one object, the 
aggrandisement of France. But there was a background of 
private quarrel and intrigue to all the politics of that day. 

One day, says the Comte de Brienne, the Queen and a 



24 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

friend of hers were talking together and laughing at the 
Cardinal. 

"He is passionately in love, Madame," said the confidante. 
"There is nothing he would not do to please Your Majesty. 
Shall I send him to you, some evening, dressed en baladin ; 
shall I make him dance a saraband ? Would you like it ? He 
would come." 

" What nonsense ! " said the Queen. 

But she was young, gay, and lively ; the idea was diverting. 
She took the lady at her word, and allowed her to go to the 
Cardinal. 

He accepted the singular rendezvous, and came at the 
appointed time. Boccau, the famous violin-player, had been 
engaged, and sworn to secrecy ; but are such secrets ever 
kept? The Queen, her friend, the musician, and two gentle- 
men were hidden behind a screen ; yet not so carefully that 
they could not enjoy the spectacle. Richelieu was dressed in 
green velvet ; he had silver bells at his knees and castanets in 
his hands ; he danced the saraband to Boccau's music. The 
spectators laughed till they could laugh no more. "After 
fifty years," says the Comte de Brienne, " I laugh myself 
when I think of it!" 

But the Eminence rouge was a dangerous plaything; his 
follies were froth on the surface, and the Queen's worst 
experience of his power was yet to come. 



CHAPTER III 

1637 

" Laboissiere, dis-moi 
Vais-je pas bien en homme ? 
— Vous chevauchez, ma foi, 
Mieux que tant que nous sommes, 

Ella est 
Parmi les hallebardes 
Au regiment des gardes, 

Comme un cadet." 

ON THE ROADS— MARIE DE ROHAN, DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE — 
THE AFFAIR OF THE VAL-DE-GRACE— A FAMOUS RIDE — LA ROCHE- 
FOUCAULD—MADEMOISELLE AT CHANTILLY 

IT was always the custom, after travelling became possible 
at all, for great people to escape from the heat and 
horrible smells of Paris at the end of the summer. The 
nobles fled to their castles, which in Richelieu's days suffered 
much dismantling of walls and towers. Some of them found 
consolation in laying out splendid gardens in a style full of 
formal affectations, yet with a grandeur of its own. The 
Royalties, weary of Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau, often 
followed the fashion set in a former century and travelled in 
state about the kingdom. Sometimes they borrowed a 
palatial house from its owners ; sometimes they were enter- 
tained, as Henry IV so often was, by great seigneurs or 
princes of the blood. Trains of coaches, carts, baggage- 
waggons, pack-horses, mules, troops of guards or armed 
servants, were added to the usual population of the great 
roads, always lively with highwaymen, beggars, gipsies, 
pedlars, students, travelling players, caravans and shows, as 
well as the smaller public who travelled unwillingly and of 
necessity, messengers, merchants, ecclesiastics, or occasion- 

25 



26 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

ally English foreigners on their way to Italy or Spain. 
Great people needed great trains, for they travelled with their 
beds and all necessary furniture, with their household servants 
and stores of provisions of every kind. Their nightly hosts 
on the way were asked, in theory at least, for no hospitality 
beyond bare walls. The King himself, when he invited 
guests to his palaces, gave them no more, except an occa- 
sional banquet. 

Journeys became a serious matter when one had to leave 
the route royale itself, frequently bad and dangerous enough, 
for the lanes, the tracks across wild heaths and through forest 
country, the narrow causeways crossing marshy ground, the 
rotten bridges or uncertain fords of streams. Many of the 
great castles, many even of the smaller towns, unless lucky 
enough to stand on a high road or a river, were plunged in 
remote country that could only be penetrated in such-like 
risky ways. And the lonely woods and moors had other 
dangers of their own. Even after Louis XIII's reign, and in 
spite of Richelieu's years of stern home rule, some of the 
smaller country nobles, hidden away in their almost inaccess- 
ible towers among the forests, led the life of robbers and 
rebels which had come down in tradition from the civil wars 
of the sixteenth century. Like the savage barons of the 
Middle Ages, they pounced down on any unhappy traveller 
in difficulties, and if he escaped alive out of their hands, he 
left his valuables behind him. And justice, even under 
Richelieu, had some difficulty in tracing and punishing these 
adventurers. 

The manners of the League were quite in discredit at 
Court and among the higher society, a change partly owing 
to the wave of Church reform under Marie de Medicis, partly 
to the romantic influence of LAstree and of Corneille's early 
plays, partly to the new atmosphere of the Hotel de 
Rambouillet and to the dignified Spanish ideas of Anne of 
Austria. Brutality was out of fashion ; but it still existed ; 
all the memoirs and stories of the time bear witness to that. 
And the few poor hobereaux who found their profit and 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 27 

excitement in highway robbery, in coining false money, in 
oppressing and torturing miserable peasants, were not much 
worse than the many great people, men and women, whose 
restless lives were spent in unscrupulous plotting and treason, 
and who for the sake of their own wild amusement, quite as 
much as for the defence of their order, devastated France by 
such wars as the second Fronde. 

They lived every moment of their lives, those people of 
Mademoiselle's early days. They breathed danger and 
adventure. Some of them — of whom Madame de Chevreuse 
was a type — never hesitated between the joy of opposition 
and risk of life and liberty. Through nearly all the lifetime 
of Louis XIII, Anne of Austria's name is not to be separated 
from that of the daring friend who did her best to drag the 
Queen into the moral and political scrapes which were her own 
native air. Marie de Rohan was a gay and audacious crea- 
ture, frank, affectionate, loyal to her many lovers and friends. 
If her portraits are to be trusted, her lovely face had the 
expression of an innocent child. Poor Chalais was not the 
only man who died for his faith in her. Devoted to the 
Queen from her first coming into France, and as Duchesse de 
Luynes the chief of her ladies, she was to blame for the 
Buckingham adventure, the greatest and most narrowly 
escaped danger of Anne's life. But religious scruples and 
Spanish reserve were rather ridiculous to Madame de 
Chevreuse, who had neither. 

She was born of an old and illustrious race, the daughter 
of Hercule de Rohan, Due de Montbazon. She inherited all 
the pride and the fearless independence of the Rohan 
"^Otto, j^oi ne puis, 

Prince ne daigne, 
Rohan je suis. 

Her early marriage with Luynes was something of a mes- 
alliance, in spite of the high place he had gained ; she made 
up for it by her second marriage with the Due de Chevreuse, 
of the House of Lorraine, as much above Luynes in birth as 
below him in intellect and character. She was a great lady 



28 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

of the greatest, superior to fashions and laws, " trop grande 
dame pour daigner connaitre la retenue et n'ayant d'autre 
frein que I'honneur." Public opinion was nothing to her. 
She had a genius for intrigue, scorned the thought of danger, 
would go to any length for her friends without a spark of 
personal ambition. The game of politics was for her a 
passion, in which her dashing courage and brilliant cleverness 
never failed, but she did not play it in her own interest. 
Neither Richelieu nor his successor had a more dangerous 
enemy than Madame de Chevreuse. 

In the late summer of 1637, Mademoiselle, a forward child 
of ten, on that first country journey which taught her some 
curious things about the world she lived in, just missed 
seeing Madame de Chevreuse at Tours. She was in the act 
of flying from Richelieu's dreaded vengeance into Spain, 

The details of the Val-de-Grace intrigue are complicated 
and curious. A letter written by the Queen to Madame 
de Chevreuse — then exiled from the Court and living chiefly 
at Tours near her devoted, eccentric admirer, the old Arch- 
bishop — was intercepted by Richelieu's spies and its bearer, 
the Queen's valet. La Porte, thrown into prison. This letter 
seems to have been the first distinct proof gained by the 
Cardinal of a correspondence kept up by Anne with her 
relatives in Spain and the Low Countries, as well as with 
the Court of London and with the Duke of Lorraine — all 
enemies of Richelieu, if not of France. This correspondence 
was partly, no doubt, on family affairs, but it contained a 
good deal of political information ; in fact, from her own 
confession, the ill-used Queen had been persecuted and pro- 
voked into great imprudence, if not disloyalty. Even 
Madame de Motteville, who from her childhood loved and 
revered the Queen, though it was only after the King's 
death that she became her personal attendant, owns that 
Anne " faisoit quelques petites intrigues contre le cardinal, 
on tout au moins desiroit d'en faire qui eussent reussi a sa 
ruine." Thus it was a personal matter with Richelieu, who 
could now take a justifiable revenge, in disgracing the Queen 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 29 

and punishing her friends, for any past scornfulness on her 
part. The Convent of the Val-de-Grace, in the Faubourg 
St. Jacques, a favourite refuge of the Queen, who had 
founded it, and who often wrote and received letters there, 
was visited and searched by the Archbishop of Paris and 
Chancellor Seguier. The Abbess, Louise de Milley, called 
the Mere de Saint-Etienne, of Spanish birth, and therefore 
the more devoted to the Queen, was threatened with ex- 
communication and forced to resign her office. There was 
a talk of the Queen's being divorced and sent back to 
Spain ; people said that Richelieu intended to marry the 
King to his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, whom he had 
already destined for Monsieur. However, after threats and 
scoldings and disgrace and humiliation deep enough to 
satisfy the Cardinal, and after being forbidden to write any 
letters without the King's knowledge or to visit any convents 
without his leave, the Queen was solemnly forgiven. One 
may judge whether she and her friends loved Richelieu any 
better. The Court in general was afraid to take the Queen's 
part, but at the worst moment she very nearly accepted the 
romantic offer of young La Rochefoucauld, then Prince 
de Marcillac and an adorer of Madame de Chevreuse, to 
carry her off with her most loyal maid of honour, Mademoiselle 
de Hautefort, to her aunt the Infanta at Brussels. Such an 
enlkiement would indeed have been a choice jewel among the 
adventures of the time. 

The idea was probably suggested by that queen of romance, 
Madame de Chevreuse. Richelieu knew very well that she 
was the moving spirit of all opposition and every intrigue ; 
still the fascination of her beauty and originality was so 
great, that he had never attempted to punish her more 
seriously than by exile — trying enough to a woman of her 
character. Even after the Val-de-Grace affair he wrote to 
her in friendly terms, and appeared to accept her own ex- 
planation of the part she had played. But Madame de 
Chevreuse knew the Cardinal too well to trust his fair words. 
Her friends at Court warned her that he meant to imprison 



30 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

her at Loches, a terrible prospect. They arranged a warning 
signal, in case the danger was imminent. A Book of Hours 
was to be sent to her from Paris ; if bound in green, it would 
mean safety ; if in red, danger. A green book arrived ; it 
seems that, the Queen having confessed and been formally 
forgiven, Richelieu really meant to let Madame de Chevreuse 
alone. In her eager anxiety she mistook the sign ; the cold 
shadow of Loches fell upon her ; there was nothing for it 
but instant flight. 

The old Archbishop did his best for her ; he was a loyal 
friend, though hardly a credit to the Church, if all the stories 
about him are true. For instance, he and Madame de 
Chevreuse were one day much moved by a representation 
of Tristan's Mariamne. 

" It seems to me, monseigneur," she said, " we are not 
touched by the story of the Passion as we are by this play." 

" Je crois bien, madame," he answered ; "c'est histoire, ceci, 
c'est histoire. I have read it in Josephus." 

A foreshadowing of the Higher Criticism, perhaps ! But 
it is to be counted among Richelieu's good deeds that he 
prevented this worthy man from being made a Cardinal. 

The Archbishop was of a Basque family, a native of 
Beam. All the roads from Paris to the south were intimately 
known to him, and he had relations on the Spanish frontier. 
He gave Madame de Chevreuse letters of credit and wrote 
down many directions for the journey. But in her haste and 
terror she lost or forgot everything. Leaving her old friend 
in despair and lamentation, she rode off with two servants 
dressed as a man, her head bound up that she might pass 
for a gentleman wounded in a duel. Everybody would help 
such a person to escape. Duels were forbidden, a most un- 
popular law among the golden youth of France ; the edict 
against duelling, like that for demolishing fortresses, was part 
of Richelieu's plan for bringing the nobles under authority. 
They never forgave him the execution of the Counts de 
Boutteville-Montmorency and des Chapelles, the first victims 
of this law. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 31 

When Madame de Chevreuse had ridden some leagues on 
the south road without rest or food, she arrived utterly 
exhausted at Ruffec, near which was the Due de la Roche- 
foucauld's Chateau of Verteuil. She discovered that the 
Duke himself was away, but Marcillac, her admirer, was 
there. Had he been alone she might have asked for 
hospitality; but his mother the Duchess was at home, as 
well as his much-neglected wife, and the name of Madame de 
Chevreuse was alarming to ladies of more conventional 
manners. She sent Marcillac a characteristic note by one of 
her men. 

" Monsieur, — I am a French gentleman, and ask your help 
in saving my liberty, perhaps my life. I have had an 
unlucky fight. I have killed a well-known nobleman. 
Justice is in search of me, and I must leave France at once. 
I think you are generous enough to help me without knowing 
me. I am in need of a coach and a servant to guide me." 

Marcillac in his young days, as everybody knows, was the 
handsomest, the most brilliant, in many ways the most dis- 
tinguished, of the high nobility of France. His literary 
fame was of a later growth. His courage, of course, was 
beyond question, but it was not the single-fold courage of 
such a man as Conde, and with all his attractiveness he was 
not generous. They say he was irresolute ; probably he was 
too clever, too imaginative, to act without calculation. 

He knew the handwriting of Madame de Chevreuse. He 
was also aware of being himself slightly entangled in the 
Val-de-Grace intrigue, and to that extent out of favour at 
Court. The Chateau de Verteuil, as usual at this time of the 
year, was full of guests, and Marcillac could not, without 
everybody's knowledge, have gone personally to the fugitive's 
aid. Only two miles off; she may very well have expected 
him. He did more than she asked, however. He sent her a 
coach and four, four saddle-horses, and three men. 

She had been too impatient to wait at Ruffec. A hundred 
yards from the gates of Verteuil the servants met a young 
gentleman dressed in black with a fair wig, who threw him- 



32 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

self into the coach, " paroissant fort las." Then the coach 
with its small escort rumbled and jolted along the country 
roads of southern Poitou — a stony land scattered with oaks 
and chestnuts — till three o'clock the next morning, when 
after a drive of weary length it drew up at another house 
belonging to the La Rochefoucaulds, inhabited by a gentle- 
man with the unattractive name of Malbasty. 

He and his wife received the supposed young seigneur 
respectfully, as a friend of M. de Marcillac, The coach 
was sent back from this place, as well as the fugitive's own 
two servants. She mounted again and rode on southward, 
attended by Malbasty and one of the men from Verteuil. 
Malbasty was completely mystified, and devoured by 
curiosity. The journey was full of romantic incidents. The 
rough inns on the road, with their mixed, uncivilised com- 
pany, were not at all to the young gentleman's taste. At 
one place he slept on hay in a barn, utterly exhausted, after 
refusing with disgust the dinner of boiled goose which was 
brought to him. A worthy woman of the village, passing 
by the open barn doors and seeing him there, cried out in 
pity and admiration, " That's the handsomest boy I ever 
saw ! I'm sorry for you, sir ! Won't you come and rest at 
my house?" The traveller thanked her in a low, hoarse 
voice, but declined to move. The good creature hurried 
home and came back with half a dozen fresh eggs, which 
were gratefully accepted. 

At the end of the first day, Malbasty begged his mysterious 
charge to tell him his name. The unknown answered that 
he was the Due d'Enghien, obliged to leave France for a 
secret reason. Whether Malbasty believed this, or whether 
he was reassured by finding himself mixed up in the mad 
doings of a Prince of the blood, the story does not say. 
But at the end of the second day, when Malbasty was to 
return home, the Duchess suddenly and frankly declared 
herself, and told him that she was escaping for political 
reasons, but without any ill will against the King or the 
Cardinal. Malbasty was extremely distressed ; her charm 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 33 

never failed with man or woman, grandee, simple gentleman, 
or lackey. He begged her not to go on, pointing out the 
many dangers of the road. She would lose herself in the 
marshy, almost pathless landes, or among the rocks and 
forests and torrents, the wild, high valleys of the Pyrenees. 
She would meet with robbers, bears, wolves, lynxes, and she 
had only one man to defend her. 

There had already been a foretaste of adventures. She 
had turned off the road to avoid the Marquis d'Antin and a 
troop of horse. She had been accosted by a mysterious 
gentleman dressed in red, who approached her with many 
bows, was angrily waved away, but dogged her steps as far 
as the next inn. 

Madame de Chevreuse would listen to no warnings. She 
entrusted Malbasty with a letter for her old friend the 
Archbishop, and then, ever gay and courageous, she rode on 
her way, only attended by Potet, the trusty guide Marcillac 
had sent her. She crossed the Pyrenees, a wild and dangerous 
ride, even at that time of the year. With every fresh league 
of distance from Paris, her spirits rose and her fears lessened. 
The women she met fell in love with her ; the men helped 
her on her way. In a certain valley, close to the Spanish 
frontier, she met a gentleman who was on guard there, and 
who might have detained her in the very sight of safety. 
He had seen her in Paris, and he told the handsome traveller 
that, but for his dress, he would have sworn Madame de 
Chevreuse was riding by. She answered him gaily that 
being a near relation of the Duchess, the likeness was not to 
be marvelled at. They parted with all kinds of courtesies, 
and half an hour later her dangers were over for the time : 
she was safe on Spanish soil, where a friend of the Queen, 
an enemy of Richelieu, the most famous beauty of her day, 
was sure of welcome. 

No sooner had she reached the frontier, than she wrote to 
the friendly gentleman on guard among the mountains, told 
him that he had not been mistaken, for she was indeed 
Madame de Chevreuse, thanked him for his " extraordinary 



34 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

civility," and begged him to send her a supply of clothes 
suitable to her sex and condition " avant de passer outre." 

So ended the famous ride which was the great subject of 
talk in that day, and which has been the foundation of many 
romances. 

It will be amusing to return for a moment to the Chateau 
de Verteuil, where Madame de Chevreuse, as her way was, 
had caused great flutterings. The Prince de Marcillac, it 
seems, had been obliged to account to his mother for the 
sudden departure of the coach. He told her no fable about 
a duellist. Madame de Chevreuse, he said, passing by 
Ruffec, had asked for a coach to convey her to Saintes on 
private business. On her return, she would have the 
pleasure of paying a visit to Madame la Duchesse de la 
Rochefoucauld. Whether all this was Marcillac's own inven- 
tion, or whether Madame de Chevreuse had written him a 
second letter to that effect, does not seem clear. That he was 
uneasy in his mind as to the lady's intentions is shown by a 
prudent letter he wrote to his secretary in Paris. Here he tells 
the same story, evidently with the object of keeping himself on 
the safe side, in case, the coach having travelled towards 
Bordeaux and not towards Saintes, the affair should be 
thought of any consequence. 

Madame de la Rochefoucauld was not delighted at the 
prospect of this "visite de haut appareil." Madame de 
Chevreuse was an embarrassing guest. But she prepared to 
show all proper hospitality, and the return of the empty 
coach, though in one way a relief, made her not a little 
uneasy. Why had Madame de Chevreuse driven south 
instead of west? Where was she going? What did it 
mean ? The doings of such a personage, with whom in- 
trigue, social and political, was as natural as the air she 
breathed, were inevitably suspicious. If anything was wrong, 
her borrowing the La Rochefoucauld coach might have 
serious consequences for its owners, even though they ranked 
next to the blood royal. The Duchess felt it necessary to 
write the whole affair to her husband in Paris, excusing her- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 35 

self and her son while she put the Duke on his guard. She 
sent the letter by an express messenger, as safer than the 
ordinary post. The straightforward ease of this letter is 
worthy of a great writer's mother — she was a Liancourt — and 
proves that women could say what they meant when Marie 
de Rabutin-Chantal, afterwards Marquise de Sevigne, was 
only eleven years old. 

"... You will judge better than I if the thing is of con- 
sequence. Whether it is or not, I wish she had gone any way 
but this, or that Rufifec was not near Verteuil, for any one 
cleverer than I am would have been deceived. Though I 
only knew she had asked for the coach after it had started, I 
should have sent it just the same if she had asked me, think- 
ing, as my son did, that the civility could not be refused and 
would matter to no one, and knowing very well that she 
and her husband have plenty of private affairs of their 
own, . . ." 

It is fairly certain that Marcillac knew what he was doing, 
though his mother did not. In spite of these letters, the 
reports that reached the Cardinal went a good deal further 
than a borrowed coach. It was said that he had gone to 
meet Madame de Chevreuse, had entertained her at one of 
his houses, had given her every mark of devotion short of 
flying with her into Spain. As a fact, she had entrusted her 
jewellery, worth two hundred thousand crowns, to his care. 
He was to return it if they ever met again, or keep it as a 
gift if she died. 

The affair did not end without a good deal of trouble and 
fuss. A formal inquiry was held that autumn by the Cardinal's 
agent, President Vignier, both at Tours and Verteuil. Riche- 
lieu was not, however, bent on punishing either Madame de 
Chevreuse or her friends very severely. By way of warning 
him to help no more duellists or disguised heroines, young 
Marcillac was sent to the Bastille. But only for a week ; 
and the King gave special orders to M. du Tremblay, 
the governor — who was the brother, by the by, of Pere 
Joseph, the iminence grise — that M. de Marcillac should 



36 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

be lodged and treated well, with liberty to walk on the 
terrace. 

Meanwhile, Madame de Chevreuse, having been made 
much of at the Spanish Court, proceeded to England, and 
was most cordially received there by her old acquaintances, 
Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Their favour enabled her 
to negotiate with Richelieu her return to France and the 
restoration of her property. But he was inexorable ; and 
even Anne of Austria, when better days dawned for her, was 
not very true to her dangerous old friend. Madame de 
Chevreuse remained in exile six years longer, a sharp thorn 
in the side of the French Government, till after both Riche- 
lieu and Louis XIII were dead. 

Mademoiselle was slightly entangled in the fringe of the 
Val-de-Grace affair, and that at its most thrilling moment. 
When she began her country progress that summer, driving 
out into the land of windmills and village spires and distant 
woods that lay round Paris, one of her first visits was paid to 
Chantilly, where the King and Queen were staying, and where 
Anne of Austria had just gone through the painful experi- 
ence of being examined by Chancellor Seguier and the 
Cardinal as to her correspondence with Spain. 

Chantilly was in those days a place of sad associations, 
though such changes of fortune were too common to make 
any deep impression on the Court. A very few years before, 
it had been the palace of the Montmorencys, where Henry, 
the last Duke, the victim of Gaston d'Orl6ans and Richelieu, 
had lived splendidly with his Roman wife, Maria Felice 
Orsini. The forests and avenues and terraces still echoed to 
the name of " Sylvie," under which Th^ophile de Viau, the 
poet whose life she had protected and reformed, sang of the 
good and unhappy Duchess. After the Duke's tragic death, 
Chantilly, confiscated to the Crown, was given by Louis XIII 
to his brother-in-law the Prince de Cond6, who had not 
attempted to save him, though his great influence might 
probably have done so. Down to the great Revolution, 
Chantilly was " the Versailles of the Princes of Cond6." 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 37 

Louis XIII, with all the Court, had honoured and admired 
the Duchesse de Montmorency. He had written a little 
poem to her with his own hand : — 

Je vols ta renommee 

Semde 
DdjcL bien loin d'icy, 
D'un chacun estimde, 
Sage Montmorency. 

Now truly " bien loin d'icy," the noble Duchess, whose very 
presence had been a check on gossip and malignity, had 
retired in her deep disgrace to a convent at MouHns, where 
she was to spend the rest of her life in mourning her young 
husband, and where the stately monument she raised to him 
keeps their memory alive to this day. 

Mademoiselle found things very dismal at Chantilly. 
Being a lively and irrepressible princess, however, with a con- 
viction that her amusement was the world's first duty, she 
soon changed all that. "Je mis toute la cour en belle 
humeur." The King was glad to forget his suspicions and 
grievances for a few days in entertaining her, and the cloudy 
faces of the courtiers cleared up. 

The Queen was in bed, ill with anger and mortification. 
The arrival of Mademoiselle, restless and noisy, was no par- 
ticular pleasure to her, but she was extremely glad to see 
Madame de Saint-Georges, and their talks were long and 
confidential. Anne of Austria opened her whole heart to 
this old friend of the Royal Family. But it was necessary 
that none of her ladies, responsible to the King, should know 
of this consolation. Mademoiselle was therefore obliged to 
sit in the room while they talked. No one, the Queen 
thought, would suspect her of discussing such affairs in the 
presence of a child. 

Mademoiselle, amusing herself as best she could during 
these important hours, made a promise of secrecy, and 
wisely thought that the best means of keeping it would be to 
forget everything she heard. She carried out this plan so 
effectually as to regret, when in after-years she came to write 



38 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

her Memoirs, having forgotten a good many curious things 
which no one but she and her governess, probably, had ever 
heard or known. 

Madame de Saint-Georges felt the danger of these royal 
confidences in the very heart of the storm and under the 
shadow of Richelieu. She conveyed Mademoiselle back to 
Paris as soon as possible, and started with her on a longer 
journey, to visit Monsieur on the borders of Touraine. 



CHAPTER IV 
1637 

"Et toujours apparaissaient de riants chateaux, des villages 
suspendus, or quelques routes bordees de peupliers majestueux ; 
enfin la Loire et ses longues nappes diamantees reluisirent au milieu 
de ses sables dores. Seductions sans fin ! " 

MADEMOISELLE IN TOURAINE — CHAMPIGNY AND RICHELIEU — THE 
DUCHESSE D'aIGUILLON AND HER FRIENDS — FONTEVRAULT AND 
MADAME JEANNE-BAPTISTE DE BOURBON — A WINTER OF HOPE 

NO difficulties as to travelling lay in wait for Mademoi- 
selle in the first of her many progresses about her 
grandfather's kingdom. The route royale into Touraine and 
the west was really a good road, and had borne its character 
for centuries. Kings of France, from very early times down 
to Henry IV, had made homes in these provinces, which 
they loved better than the neighbourhood of fierce and rest- 
less Paris. The " garden of France," " the afternoon-land of 
idleness and laughter," with its parks and forests, its ever- 
green meadows and the broad mirror of its blue and silver 
Loire, had been literally the happy hunting-ground of all 
the most brilliant personages in France, till near the end of 
the sixteenth century. The badges and devices of Francis I 
and of Henry II were everywhere, on the stately walls of 
cream-coloured stone, over the beautiful windows and arch- 
ways of the chateaux built or restored by them. Each 
interior was a picture gallery of themselves and their courts. 
And it was not only the royal castles and palaces that gave 
splendour and civilisation to Touraine and its borders, for 
all this part of France was full of the country-houses of 
great nobles and great statesmen. 

At this time Touraine had lost a good deal of its regal 
glory ; most of that had passed with the Valois, Gaston 

39 



40 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

d'Orleans, neither prince nor sportsman in the old sense, was 
a poor substitute for the Royalties of a hundred years before. 
But the charm and delightfulness, the old spirit of Touraine, 
still lived. And Gaston, whatever his faults, was able to 
appreciate its atmosphere and its traditions better, possibly, 
than many a better man. 

Mademoiselle travelled in her large leathern coach drawn 
by four or six horses, with the glass windows not long intro- 
duced. Such a coach would hold six or eight persons inside, 
their places being strictly settled by etiquette, and four or 
six servants outside. An armed escort protected the coach 
and the convoy of carts and pack-mules which followed 
with the baggage, including Mademoiselle's bed and other 
furniture. 

Chief among the suite, after Madame de Saint-Georges, 
were Mademoiselle de Saint-Louis and Mademoiselle de 
Beaumont, both women of character and energy. At 
Chantilly, the little Princess had taken an immense fancy 
to Mademoiselle de Saint-Louis, who was one of the Queen's 
maids of honour and related to Madame de Saint-Georges. 
She begged so hard that the Queen allowed her to carry her 
favourite away. Mademoiselle de Beaumont was an im- 
petuous person, afraid of nothing and nobody, whose frank 
opposition to Cardinal Mazarin cost her the Queen's favour 
later on. She had had a certain training in England a dozen 
years before, as one of Henrietta Maria's ladies, and their 
very rude and violent expulsion had made a bond between 
her and Madame de Saint-Georges, who had gone through 
the same experience. 

Monsieur sent officers of his household to meet his little 
daughter at Pithiviers, and she made her journey by short 
stages, sleeping at various chateaux by the way, to Chambord, 
where he was waiting to receive her. 

Chambord in its gorgeous youth — it was built by Francis I 
in 1526 and following years, on the site of a feudal castle 
of the Counts of Blois — had attractions quite lost by the 
dismal, rococo, ponderous old pile we see now. Like the 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 41 

fantastic palace of a dream, its immense towers, its hundreds 
of fanciful pinnacles and chimneys, its shining grey roofs 
and gilded vanes, were approached by a long avenue through 
a vast park or forest several leagues round, where the Valois 
kings had hunted wolf and wild boar. Above this forest, 
sweeping like the wind through the clouds, the cry of a pack 
of hounds and the horn of their ghostly huntsman were 
heard — are heard still — on winter nights. When the chateau 
belonged to Gaston d'OrMans, the foundations of its towers 
were still surrounded by a broad moat, with arches and 
open balustrades and a bridge guarded by stone lions. All 
this was improved away in later years, but must have given 
Chambord the touch of enchantment which is lacking to it 
now. It was a glorious place in the liquid deep blue air of 
late summer weather, when the little Princess, very conscious 
of her own dignity, pleased with the ceremony that attended 
her, arrived with her train at the stately entrance under the 
centre lantern. 

Gaston had his redeeming points, though it is hard to find 
an historian or a novelist who will allow their existence. 
The best of them, perhaps, was that boyish good nature 
which also belonged to his brother Louis, though in his case 
generally smothered in clouds of dark temper and suspicious- 
ness. Gaston's lightness of spirit, his talent for amusing 
himself and other people, seems to have died out of him as 
middle age advanced, and after Madame Marguerite resumed 
her lawful and lifelong empire. But at this time, whatever 
modern writers may say, he could be delightful, and his 
daughter found him so. 

Chambord has thirteen great staircases ; of which the 
greatest, the famous one, is made of two spiral flights wind- 
ing round a centre pillar ; so contrived that two persons can 
go up or down without meeting each other, from the ground 
floor to the lofty lantern which commands the whole wonder- 
ful roof, to say nothing of the surrounding country. On each 
story the staircase opens on four large halls. In one of these, 
by the by, then arranged as a theatre, Louis XIV watched 



42 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

the first performances of M. de Pourceaugnac and Le 
Bourgeois Gentilhoinme. 

On this summer day of 1637, Monsieur and Mademoiselle 
played a grand game up and down the staircase of Chambord. 
When she arrived, he was at the top ; she ran up, he 
ran down. There were screams of laughter. Mademoiselle 
was enchanted with the diJBiculty of catching her father, and 
still more enchanted when she had caught him. They were 
the best friends in the world. 

Chambord at this time, however, was only a playground. 
Monsieur was living at the Chateau de Blois, which became, 
in fact, his country home for the rest of his life, and here 
Mademoiselle and her suite paid him a long visit. She was 
received with royal honours by the stately little town on the 
Loire, and reigned like a young Queen at the castle. Out- 
wardly, though full of stir and magnificence and gaiety, the 
building was much the same as it is now : the red cloister of 
Louis XII, the gorgeous creamy wing of Francois I, with its 
wealth of carving, his salamander everywhere ; the beautiful 
open staircase, light as lace and strong as iron, the labyrinth 
of rooms with their deep windows and terrible echoes of 
struggle and murder. There was a noise of masons and 
carpenters in the great court, for Mansard, under Gaston's 
orders, was at this time employed in rebuilding the wing 
opposite the entrance. It is said that Gaston meant to 
rebuild the whole castle in the stiff taste of his own day, but 
mercifully this plan came to nothing ; rather from want of 
money than of time. He made a beautiful garden behind 
his new wing, where he cultivated for his amusement all 
kinds of curious plants and simples. 

The fair-haired Princess went romping over the castle high 
and low. Always something of a tomboy, active games were 
her passion, and her father willingly spent his time in playing 
with her. The favourite game was battledore and shuttlecock, 
and they played matches which Mademoiselle generally won. 
Then the shops of Blois were ransacked for prizes — watches, 
trinkets, anything that Her Royal Highness would accept. 




« 

X 
u 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 43 

All the people of quality who lived within reasonable dis- 
tance of Blois came riding and driving in to pay their 
respects to Mademoiselle. Among these was her half-uncle, 
Cesar Due de Vendome, who, more fortunate than his 
brother, the Grand Prieur, had escaped with his life from 
Vincennes after the affaire Chalais. He had been an exile 
from Court ever since, living partly at the beautiful Chateau 
of Chenonceaux, which was given to his wife, Frangoise de 
Lorraine, daughter of the Due de Mercoeur, by her aunt, 
Queen Louise de Lorraine, the gentle and saintly widow of 
Henry III of France. The Due de Vendome was a doubtful 
character, according to his contemporaries — " un homme 
d'esprit sans reputation, sans bont6 et sans fidelite." But he 
and his two sons, Louis Due de Mercoeur and Frangois Due 
de Beaufort, were among the chief of those great nobles 
whom Richelieu could never really crush, though Mercoeur, 
in later years, resigned himself to an alliance with Mazarin. 
His daughter, who afterwards married the unlucky Charles 
Amed6e Due de Nemours, was allowed, after the first time, 
to visit Mademoiselle at Blois without her mother. Made- 
moiselle thought this incorrect. But Madame de Vendome 
was a devout person of rather recluse habits, and did not 
find it necessary to pay more than one visit of ceremony to 
Monsieur and his daughter. His Court had not then attained 
the " chilling respectability " of later years. 

Mademoiselle found her Vendome cousins very agreeable, 
especially M. de Beaufort, and visited Chenonceaux more 
than once during her stay in Touraine. Beautiful Chenon- 
ceaux, the most enchanting and romantic of all the famous 
chateaux of the west, was hardly appreciated by Mademoi- 
selle. It was of course in the taste of a past century — not so 
long past as to have come back into fashion. No doubt she 
admired her father's new wing at Blois. Chenonceaux, white 
and grey, smiling in the sunshine, with its graceful windows, 
and all its turrets and chimney-tops crowned with a gilded 
flourish of vanes, its feet bathed in the bright ripples of the 
Cher — Chenonceaux like an enchanter's palace, a little evil 



44 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and very luxurious in the midst of its gardens and woods — 
was to Mademoiselle not much more than " a most extra- 
ordinary old house." She was delighted, however, with a 
magnificent supper there, at which young Beaufort acted as 
host. There were eight courses of twelve dishes each, and 
Paris itself could not have surpassed either cookery or 
service. Even at ten years old, true to her nation, Made- 
moiselle was a critic. She never admired anything not in its 
own way admirable. She had also, like most people in those 
happy days, a good appetite and a good digestion. Then, as 
now, Touraine was a Paradise for such. 

Mademoiselle found a more spiritual kind of pleasure, of 
which she was not unworthy, in a visit of two days to the 
Chateau de Selles, Madame de B6thune having duly paid her 
respects at Blois. This chateau, also on the Cher, had been 
built by Philippe de Bethune, the younger brother of the 
Due de Sully — still living, a very old man, on his estate of 
Villebon. Philippe, who had also been a faithful servant of 
the great Henry, was now seventy-six, and lived at Selles 
with his son Hippolyte and his wife. They were among the 
most cultivated people of their time. The father had been 
Henry's ambassador at Rome ; the son, who was born at 
Rome, seems to have breathed in with his native air a passion 
for classical learning rare among the French nobles of that 
day. He made it the work of his life to collect ancient 
manuscripts, and his collection is even now one of the 
treasures of the Bibliotheque Nationale. 

Mademoiselle was used to finding herself an honoured 
guest, but there was something in her reception at Selles 
which she could never forget. The old man's passionate 
loyalty to his master, Henry IV — who had certainly a genius, 
tant bien que mal, for making himself loved — sprang to life 
again at the sight of Henry's grandchild. Mademoiselle 
had indeed a good deal of her grandfather, especially as to 
his fearless frankness and bonhomie. She was intensely 
proud of him too ; and if his heroic virtues were inimitable 
in her eyes, so also was his clever judgment and knowledge 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 45 

of men. She was ready and eager, therefore, on her side, to 
pay every honour to the venerable M. de Bethune. With 
childish delight she accepted all his compliments, as well as 
a number of Roman curiosities with which he presented her. 

Another visit — desired, one may be sure, by neither hosts 
nor guest — was paid to the Chateau de Richelieu. Mademoi- 
selle travelled there in state from Tours. She was conveyed 
down the Loire to that city in Monsieur's barge, arriving 
just after Madame de Chevreuse had galloped away, and 
she found there plenty of amusements of all kinds, including 
the universal comidie. She was also expected, in Monsieur's 
amazing way, to entertain at least one person who startled 
the propriety of Madame de Saint-Georges, easy-going as 
she and public opinion both were. Although Mademoiselle 
had even then, she tells us, a horror of vice, and needed to 
be assured that Louison Roger was a good girl before she 
would play with her, it seems likely that Madame de Saint- 
Georges was glad to carry off her charge into more discreet 
society. 

Long afterwards Mademoiselle took under her protection, 
as a pretty boy who grew into a gallant young man, the son 
of that dark-eyed Louison of Tours. His mother had re- 
tired into a convent. His royal father, unlike his own father 
in such circumstances, quite declined all responsibility in the 
matter. Mademoiselle educated the boy, called him first 
Chevalier, then Comte de Charny, after one of her estates, 
and bought him commissions in the Guards and in the 
Regiment de la Couronne. It seems that he was the only 
son of Gaston d'Orleans who lived to grow up. 

On the way to Richelieu, Mademoiselle visited Champigny 
— afterwards the scene of Madame de la Fayette's romance, 
La Princesse de Montpensier — which had belonged to her 
ancestors. She had been robbed of this estate, with the 
pretext of an exchange, by Cardinal de Richelieu, on whose 
lands it bordered. Gaston d'Orleans, her guardian, was too 
weak to resist him. At the time this happened Mademoi- 
selle was not old enough to make her voice heard, but now 



46 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and ever after, till she at length succeeded in recovering her 
property, she strongly resented the tyrannical bargain. The 
splendid old house of the Dukes of Montpensier had been 
demolished, and was gone for ever, but the chapel in which 
they were buried, with its desecrated tombs and its fine 
stained glass, stands to this day. It was not spared by any 
wish of the Cardinal, but through the fortunately good 
memory of Pope Urban VIII. He was asked to consent to 
its destruction. It was so ruinous, the Cardinal assured him, 
that Mass could no longer be said there. But Urban re- 
membered the former days of Champigny and its illustrious 
owners. He even remembered, when Nuncio in France, 
having said Mass there, and he refused to allow the chapel 
to be pulled down. Richelieu was very angry, but even he 
could not disobey the Pope. So it was left for the Revolu- 
tion to dishonour the tombs of the Montpensiers and to 
deface their ancient coats of arms. 

Mademoiselle, praying in the chapel for her ancestors' 
souls, was beset by a crowd of the villagers of Champigny, 
Her grandfather, Duke Henry, had loaded them with kind- 
ness ; they had not forgotten him, though he had been thirty 
years dead, and they came with loud crying and tears and 
shouts of welcome to greet the child who ought to have 
been their liege lady. It was a poor change for them to be 
under the rule of a Richelieu. These good peasants, no 
doubt, had all the scorn in the world for the upstart Cardinal. 
He was not a prophet in his own country. He had not even 
been born there. The Du Plessis, to whom his father be- 
longed, were people of old family in the country, but they 
were not great nobles ; they were many degrees below the 
rank of a Montpensier, though his grandfather had made a 
fine match by marrying a Rochechouart. And now he posed 
as — what he was, after all — the first man in France. Even 
the King had to bow before Armand du Plessis, Cardinal- 
Due de Richelieu. But the people of Champigny kept their 
old faith. Their village had been absorbed by its gorgeous 
neighbour ; they remained loyal to the heiress of their ancient 




THE CHAPEL AT CHAMPIGNY 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 47 

lords, Mademoiselle. And she, who never forgot an old 
friend, did not rest till Charapigny was her own again. 

All this — Mademoiselle's devotions at the tombs of her 
ancestors, and the people's love for her — was not pleasing to 
the great lady who now reigned at Richelieu. The Duchesse 
d'Aiguillon had driven over to Champigny to meet her young 
royal guest, and found herself in the midst of an excited, 
dark-faced crowd whose shouts were not for her. She hurried 
Mademoiselle away as soon as possible from her former 
vassals and carried her off to the little town and vast chateau 
of Richelieu. They drove through a woody, lonely country, 
with chalk hills and scrambling vines and walnut trees every- 
where, just as one may see them now. The peasants, gather- 
ing in their crops, shaded their eyes from the low sunlight to 
see the last Montpensier passing in her coach, escorted by the 
Cardinal's niece, surrounded by the Cardinal's liveries. They 
pranced along the road from Chinon to Chatellerault — the 
only way of approach to Richelieu — and forded the river 
Mable at the very place where, fifty or sixty years before, 
Frangois du Plessis, father of the Cardinal, had lain in wait 
for his neighbour, the Sieur de Mausson, and murdered him, in 
revenge for the death of his own elder brother at Mausson's 
hands. 

Mademoiselle was very finely received at her godfather's 
castle. It was dark when she arrived, for September even- 
ings, down there, are as short as they are lovely. The little 
town, built by the Cardinal on the site of an old tumble- 
down village, was lit up, as well as the castle, with coloured 
lanterns. Mademoiselle found the effect most agreeable. 
The chateau — destroyed a hundred years ago — was royal in 
its size and magnificence. Europe had been ransacked to 
ornament it with statues, bronzes, paintings, tapestries, and 
gorgeous furniture. It was regarded as one of the wonders 
of France. Its courts and terraces, domes and pavilions, had 
all grown up in a marvellous way round about the feudal 
manor which had come down to the Du Plessis, through a 
marriage into the old family of Clerembault, about the time 



48 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

of Charles VII. The Cardinal had vexed his architect by 
forbidding him to pull down the old rooms that his father and 
mother had lived in ; a pleasant trait in " le plus ambitieux at 
le plus glorieux homme du monde " ; but the consequence 
was that the interior of the chateau hardly corresponded in 
grandeur with the exterior. It was all splendid enough, how- 
ever. Mademoiselle was especially struck with Michel- 
angelo's two marble Slaves, standing at the top of the great 
staircase on a balcony commanding the courtyard. These 
statues, now at the Louvre, had been presented by the 
sculptor to Strozzi, the great collector, and by him to Francis 
I, who gave them to the Constable de Montmorency. In the 
ruin of that house they had come into the Cardinal's pos- 
session. 

Mademoiselle and her suite were a good deal amused by 
the manners and customs of Madame d'Aiguillon and the 
ladies staying with her at Richelieu. These were Madame 
du Vigean, her devoted friend — mother of that lovely 
Marthe du Vigean who bewitched the great Cond6 later on 
— and the already famous Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, 
Julie d'Angennes, the flower of the Pricieuses, the flattered 
heroine of the poets who haunted her mother's sacred Blue 
Room at the Hotel de Rambouillet. JuHe d'Angennes was 
at this time thirty, and it was not till eight years later that 
she married the Marquis de Montausier, who had been in 
love with her for thirteen years. Even now, popular and 
charming, she was a leading figure in the intelligent, the 
cultured, the more refined half of society, whose influence, 
becoming fashionable in spite of certain great ladies like 
Madame de Chevreuse, was fast softening manners as a 
whole. Madame d'Aiguillon, a very powerful person during 
her uncle's lifetime, hovering between the Carmelites and a 
world in which she could not reign as despotically as she 
wished, had a rather half-hearted respect for the Hotel de 
Rambouillet, though she tenderly loved Mademoiselle Julie. 
Letters were all very well, and to some extent a means of 
distinction. She preferred either the cloister and its fame of 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 49 

pure devotion or a life of politics and lucrative governments. 
She was a clever woman who could not live without friend- 
ship, so far as it meant flattery. At this time she and 
Madame du Vigean were inseparable. 

If Mademoiselle herself was not particularly welcome to 
the three ladies at Richelieu, still less so was one member at 
least of her suite. Madame d'Aiguillon was furious, Madame 
du Vigean was embarrassed : her husband, the Baron du 
Vigean, one of Monsieur's courtiers, had the bad taste to in- 
trude on his wife's peaceful and friendly little idyl. The fuss 
was prodigious. Mademoiselle, even at her age, found it very 
amusing, and enjoyed the joke privately with her own ladies. 
They were all, even Madame de Saint-Georges, in fits of 
laughter, Mademoiselle having been called to account by 
Madame dAiguillon for her indiscretion in bringing this 
gentleman to Richelieu, Mademoiselle, always a Princess, 
answered politely, but was not repentant or meek. In truth 
M. du Vigean, for his own ends, had added himself without 
leave to the party. He had attached himself to Monsieur's 
secretary, and travelled in his coach. Another hanger-on, a 
young man who in those days was glad to eat at the secre- 
tary's table, was that handsome Chabot who in after years 
married the heiress. Mademoiselle de Rohan, and as Due de 
Rohan-Chabot took a very high place in society. 

Two days at Richelieu were enough for Mademoiselle and 
for her hostess. The whole party started together to drive to 
Fontevrault, where Mademoiselle was to visit her half-aunt, 
the Abbess, Madame Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon. Madame 
dAiguillon, with her friends, felt bound to escort the little 
Princess on her way, but their sense of duty only carried 
them as far as the stopping-place where the party break- 
fasted, 

A little scene here was watched by Mademoiselle and her 
ladies with unkind amusement, Madame d'Aiguillon changes 
colour suddenly. The weather was probably hot ; the bore- 
dom of the situation was too much for a nervous woman, 
accustomed to be petted and worshipped, tired of making 

E 



50 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

reverences to a rather haughty, quick-witted royal minx of 
ten years old. 

Madame du Vigean flies to her friend's side, feels her 
pulse. " My dear, you are ill ; you are feverish ! " For half 
an hour, Mademoiselle asserts, these ladies entertain each 
other with "discours patelins." The complaining, coaxing, 
flattering, brings about the desired end. Mademoiselle begs 
the Duchesse not to take the trouble of coming any further. 
She presses it so earnestly that Madame d'Aiguillon is per- 
suaded. She, with her devoted friends, drives back to Riche- 
lieu, and Mademoiselle realises the joy of that drive. She 
herself is quite as much pleased and relieved as Madame 
d'Aiguillon. " Toute cette comedie," she says, "nous fit 
gagner gaiement Fontevrault." 

Fontevrault is desolate enough now. Even sadder in its 
doom than other great French abbeys, more than a hundred 
years have passed since its glory departed. The Plantagenet 
tombs are there still, witnessing to the times when Henry II 
was carried from Chinon, by the Pont des Nonnains he built 
over the Vienne, and when the great Richard was brought 
from Chaluz to the chief sanctuary of Anjou, and when 
Eleanor of Aquitaine ended her stormy life there as a 
cloistered nun. But except the bare framework of the 
desecrated church, and the old refectory with its portraits of 
the thirty-six abbesses from i lOO to the Revolution, and 
certain white crumbling walls covered with ivy and roses, 
and the ever-living landscape of remote France, glowing 
vineyard, oak and walnut and chestnut shade, grey poplars 
rustling, goats climbing the roadside banks and dark-faced 
peasant children watching them, or an old woman, very thin 
and brown, spinning with a distaff — except these things, the 
little-noticed background of centuries, all the life of the great 
Abbey has disappeared as if it had never been. It has faded 
into the life of a modern prison. 

In Mademoiselle's days Fontevrault was one of the most 
famous and splendid abbeys of France. The abbesses were 
very great ladies, generally of royal blood, and of necessity 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 51 

clever and wise, for by the founder's statutes they ruled com- 
munities of men as well as of women, not only in the mother 
house, but scattered through France, England, and Spain. 
The Abbey was also a school for princesses and girls of high 
birth ; down to its extinction, daughters of France were 
educated there. And though the mixture of religion and the 
world could not be always edifying, a generally high standard 
was kept at Fontevrault through seven hundred years. 

Madame Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon, the daughter of 
Henry IV and Charlotte des Essarts, was by no means the 
least distinguished in the long line of abbesses, though 
neither a religious reformer like her predecessors, Marie de 
Bretagne and Renee de Bourbon, nor a brilliant and learned 
lady like her successor, Gabrielle de Rochechouart-Morte- 
mart, sister of Madame de Montespan. She spent years in 
unsuccessful efforts for the canonisation of the founder, 
Robert d'Arbrissel, and she had long struggles with her 
rebellious monks, who kicked against the authority of a 
woman, as they had often done before, and not unnaturally. 
This affair ended in the submission of the monks, for 
Madame, besides being a person of much sweetness and 
charm, had the weight of tradition and authority behind her. 
And with all her lively gentleness, no one could forget that 
she was of the royal blood of France, "et du plus chaud." 
Known originally as Mademoiselle de Romorantin, and made 
Abbess of Fontevrault at seventeen, Jeanne-Baptiste was 
perhaps the best and the most attractive of Henry's various 
children. She was on affectionate terms with her half- 
brothers and sisters, especially with Louis XIII and Henri- 
etta Maria of England. It may have been her ruling pre- 
sence at Fontevrault which drew her brother, the Comte de 
Moret, as tradition says, to his hermitage at Gardelles. 

Gaily then, with rumbling of coach-wheels, trampling of 
horses, a mighty cracking of whips and jingling of bells. 
Mademoiselle and her escort came dashing out of the country 
roads into the white paved square before the Abbey gates. 
She was received with great respect and honour. Being a 



52 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

royal visitor, the gentlemen of her suite had a right to enter 
the Abbey, and the scene in those old courts was lively 
enough. It was sunset ; the bright light, the marvellously 
clear air of Anjou, made the whole picture like a middle- 
age illumination. Mademoiselle tells us of the excitement 
of the nuns, who crowded round her in eager welcome. The 
demonstrations of " ces bonnes filles " in their white habits 
rather bored the little Princess, who never but once — and 
that was later — felt any inclination towards a convent life. 
She is slightly scornful of the " raison de la parente " which 
brought the nuns to her feet as " la niece de Madame." By 
Madame herself she was " accablee de caresses." 

Then the whole company was swept into the church for a 
Te Deum and other ceremonies, and by the time all this was 
over, to Mademoiselle's vexation, the swift twilight had 
descended and it was nearly dark. Not too dark, however, 
for the evening's amusement in hope of which Mademoiselle 
had come to Fontevrault, and which had filled her thoughts, 
she frankly confesses, through all the solemn singing in the 
Grand Moustier. Rumour said that one of the nuns had 
gone mad. The sight of this unhappy yi?/Z^ would be worth 
that of all the treasures of the Abbey, many and magnificent, 
sacred relics, gorgeous plate and jewellery, rare lace, precious 
manuscripts. 

It so happened that Mesdemoiselles de Beaumont and 
de Saint-Louis, frivolous-minded or wishing for fresh air, 
slipped away from the duty of attending their mistress at 
church and strolled round the various courts of the Abbey. 
They had not gone far when they heard horrible screams. 
Mademoiselle de Beaumont wanted to run away. Mademoi- 
selle de Saint-Louis, more adventurous, insisted on finding 
out what the noise meant. A dungeon grating, nearly level 
with the ground, showed them the head of the wretched 
lunatic they had heard of As the poor creature, screaming, 
leaped at her prison bars, they saw that she was naked. 
Her " extravagance " delighted them so much, they were so 
immensely amused, that after watching her for some time 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 53 

they hurried back towards the church. Mademoiselle must 
not miss such a rare spectacle. The child tore herself away 
from her reverend aunt — who smiled indulgently, no doubt, 
being " excessivement bonne et douce" — and spent the rest 
of the evening, till supper-time, in laughing at the antics of 
that poor mad nun. 

This, unfortunately, was the one really exciting attraction 
that the Abbey had to offer. The sane nuns were tiresome, 
the cooking was bad, and Madame could not persuade her 
wilful niece to stay more than two days in the house where 
so many royal personages had delighted to linger. 

Hunting, dancing, games, comedie, collations, at many 
different castles and abbeys of Anjou and Touraine, weeks 
of delightful entertainment in Monsieur's company at Tours, 
Blois, Amboise ; with all this the autumn slipped happily 
away. At Amboise on the 3rd of November was celebrated 
the Saint-Hubert, the old hunting festival of France. After 
this the weather became cold and wintry, and Mademoiselle, 
not without tears, had to leave her agreeable father and set 
out on her journey back to Paris. 

Arrived there, her first duty was to visit the King and 
Queen at Saint-Germain. Their Majesties, who were both 
in a particularly good humour, received her with affectionate 
caresses, and each accepted with joy an enamelled watch of 
the latest fashion, which she had brought from Blois. The 
King's watch, dark blue and very small, must have been a 
gem of its kind. 

This was the beginning of a very agreeable winter for 
Mademoiselle and the whole Court. There was a brightness 
of dawn in the sky. Everybody was waiting, at last in hope 
not to be disappointed, for the rising of the sun. 

" Vous serez ma belle-fille ! " said Anne of Austria to the 
young niece who shared frankly in the excitement and joy 
of her elders. 

The poor Queen, at last, was too happy not to talk non- 
sense, or to be in less than charity with all the world. The 
sincere gladness of Gaston's little daughter touched her 



54 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

heart, for Gaston would be the one person injured by a 
prince's birth. Not unnaturally, a fancy of compensation 
came to her, and Mademoiselle, not unnaturally, took the 
words in earnest. 

Cardinal de Richelieu was already frowning on this young 
ambition, which lived long enough to die under the cannon 
of the Fronde. 



CHAPTER V 

1638-1642 

** II est passe, il a plie bagage 
Ce cardinal, dont c'est moult grand dommage 
Pour sa maison : c'est comme je I'entends ; 
Car pour autrui, maints hommes sont contents. 
En bonne foi, de n'en voir que I'image. 

Or parlerons sans crainte d'etre en cage ; 
II est en plomb I'eminent personnage 
Qui de nos maux a ri plus de vingt ans. . . 
II est passe." 

MADEMOISELLE DE HAUTEFORT — ROYAL SPORT — " MON PETIT 
MARI" — THE STORY OF CINQ-MARS— THE DEATH OF RICHELIEU. 

THOSE were the days when Mademoiselle de Hautefort, 
the beautiful fair girl, Anne of Austria's most loyal 
confidante, who dared Richelieu's anger for her in the Val- 
de-Grace affair, stood almost higher in the King's affections 
than his horses and his dogs. 

Two of the Queen's ladies, both loyal to their mistress — 
she too indifferent to be jealous — both hating and hated by 
the Cardinal, reigned long in turn over the queer heart of 
Louis XHI. Sometimes it was Marie de Hautefort's blue- 
eyed brilliancy, sometimes the gentle saintliness, the dark, 
soft, twilight beauty of Louise de la Fayette. This last was 
the only woman, probably, who ever had any real and deep 
influence with the King. His love for her was an affectionate 
and confiding friendship, and she loved him tenderly for 
himself It was the love of friends, or of a brother and 
sister : so much the more alarming to Richelieu, who never 
rested till he had driven Mademoiselle de la Fayette into 
the Convent of Sainte Marie de Chaillot, where she died 
Superior after many years. 

55 



56 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

There was no sentiment in Mademoiselle de Hautefort's 
flirtations with Louis. She dazzled and fascinated him. 
She did her best, hard as it was, to strike a spark of passion 
or even manhood out of the shyest of princes. She tor- 
mented him as far as his dignity would allow, while the 
Queen and the Court laughed in the background. In com- 
pany, Louis did his best to hide his immense admiration for 
Mademoiselle de Hautefort ; alone, he made songs in her 
honour, which were sung at the Queen's evening concerts, 
three times a week, to music of his composition. Very often 
they quarrelled, for Mademoiselle de Hautefort was plain- 
spoken. Then he spent solitary hours in writing out all their 
talks and arguments. At such times his company was more 
unpleasant than usual ; even in the Queen's rooms, he would 
sit sulking and yawning in a corner, speaking to nobody, no- 
body daring to speak to him. All amusements ceased, and 
a chill melancholy reigned, till the brouillerie had passed over. 

When Mademoiselle de Hautefort was amiable and the 
King was happy, his hunting parties that winter were delight- 
ful. Mademoiselle de Hautefort rode as the central figure in 
a brilliant group of the Queen's ladies, among whom were 
her young sister Mademoiselle d'Escars, Mademoiselle de 
Chemerault — sent away from Court later on because of a 
love affair with the famous Cinq-Mars, and also unenviably 
known as a spy of Richelieu's — Mesdemoiselles de Beaumont 
and de Saint-Louis, and last but by no means least, the little 
Princess of Orleans, the ten-year-old Mademoiselle. Dressed 
in bright colours, with feathered hats, riding fine horses richly 
caparisoned, this gay party rode after the King and his 
hounds, at a swinging pace, through the long glades of the 
forests that echoed with horns and shouting. The hunt, 
cleverly managed, always led in the direction of some house 
or castle, where the royal party found refreshments, and the 
King, like a simple gentleman, waited on the ladies. One of 
the favourite haunts was Versailles, where on the top of a 
hill crowned with a windmill Louis had built a small hunting 
chateau some years before. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 57 

When chase and banquet were over, the King drove back 
to Saint-Germain in Mademoiselle's coach, sitting between 
her and Mademoiselle de Hautefort and entertaining them 
with stories of horses and dogs and birds. Sometimes, too, 
when in a specially good humour, he allowed them to chatter 
freely on even so dangerous a subject as the Cardinal, whose 
social tyranny he resented quite as much as they did, though 
a mixture of moral weakness and political sense kept him 
silent in the matter. 

Long after, Mademoiselle remembered those hunting days 
among the brightest of her childhood. She always spoke 
with affection of her curious uncle, whose kindness to her 
never failed, though a strange face among her young com- 
panions was enough to frighten and displease him. For 
instance, when the Princesse de Conde and the Duchesse de 
Vendome brought their daughters to Saint-Germain — where 
the Court spent that winter and spring — etiquette demanding 
that Mademoiselle should entertain these two young girls, the 
King shrank away from his niece's company in an access of 
awkward shyness, as if he had been a countryman just come 
to Court. " C'est une assez mauvaise qualite pour un grand 
roi, et particulierement en France," says Mademoiselle, with 
her usual good sense and frankness. 

The Dauphin, afterwards Louis XIV, was born at Saint- 
Germain on September 5th, 1638, and was welcomed by 
Mademoiselle, in fine possessive fashion, as " mon petit 
mari." Her godfather the Cardinal did more than frown 
upon her ; he at once clipped her soaring wings by ordering 
her back to Paris, with a good scolding into the bargain. 
She, who already saw herself Queen of France, was furiously 
angry. The King and Queen let her go, not without regret. 
The Queen tried laughingly to comfort her : " My son is 
really too small ! You shall marry my brother." But neither 
King nor Queen had power enough, in the face of 
Richelieu's stern disapproval, to keep the child to play 
with her baby cousin at Saint-Germain. During the next 
three or four years she lived almost entirely in Paris, 



58 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

visiting the Court not more than half a dozen times a 
year. 

By the time she was fourteen she had gravely considered 
two possible marriages, and was not too sorry that both 
came to nothing, the little royal husband still holding his 
place in the background of her heart. Marriage or no 
marriage, she had always a special tenderness for Louis, 
Dauphin and King ; the passion of her childhood, lingering 
on into grown-up life, was not all ambition. Apart from 
him, and from the one miserable love-affair of her later life, 
the idea of marriage, for her, was never at all touched with 
sentiment. She had a great and tolerably just idea of her 
own importance, and it was difficult to offer her a match that 
she considered worthy. 

Her first lover was a Prince of the royal blood, Louis 
de Bourbon, Comte de Soissons, whose father, Charles de 
Bourbon, was a son of the first Prince de Conde, the 
Huguenot hero, by his second marriage with Frangoise- 
Marie d'Orleans-Longueville. As a boy of five years old, 
Henry IV had promised Prince Louis the hand of his 
youngest baby daughter, Henriette Marie. But she was 
only a few months old when her father died ; and Queen 
Marie de Medicis had other ambitions for her. Monsieur 
le Comte, as they called him, would gladly have married 
Gaston's first wife, the young Duchesse de Montpensier. 
After her death the Princes became friends, and the Comte 
de Soissons took up Gaston's quarrel against the King and 
Richelieu, but did not, like Gaston, find it necessary to 
submit. He was always in opposition, joining in every con- 
spiracy, and at last, with the Dues de Guise and de Bouillon, 
throwing himself into civil war with the help of Spain. 

In the intervals of plotting and fighting, an exile from 
France, plunging deeper in the King's displeasure every day, 
he kept up a lively correspondence with Monsieur, as well as 
with Mademoiselle. Having failed to win her mother, he 
proposed himself as a husband for her ; the fortune was the 
same, and would have done great things for him. Her 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 59 

father was not unwilling, and she, the courtship extending 
over some years, with a constant tribute of sugar-plums and 
compliments, grew accustomed to the idea. The King's 
consent being out of the question, and Mademoiselle being 
fourteen, M. le Comte asked Monsieur's leave to run away 
with her. He had friends at Court who would gladly have 
lent a hand to the adventure ; his mother and most of his 
relations, as well as his devoted friend Madame de Mont- 
bazon, stepmother and rival beauty of Madame de Chevreuse. 
But Gaston dared not consent ; and M. le Comte's courtship 
came very soon to a tragic end : he was killed in the 
victorious skirmish of La Marfee, fighting against France, 
in the summer of 1641. The King forbade any mourning 
for this traitor Bourbon, but Mademoiselle paid a visit of 
condolence to his mother and wept secretly with her and his 
friends over the loss of "un fort honnete homme, doue de 
grandes qualites." 

The Comtesse de Soissons believed that she had a super- 
natural warning of her son's death. As she was walking 
from one room to another in her chateau of Bagnolet, two 
carved palms fell from the ceiling at her feet. She was 
startled, but only thought of having the broken ornaments 
replaced. When the news came that he had died on that 
very day, and in the moment of victory over the King's 
forces, she remembered the little incident. All society talked 
of the fallen palms, and gave them their full meaning. 

In the same year Mademoiselle lost the possible husband 
whom Anne of Austria had offered to her as a substitute 
for the Dauphin. The Infant Ferdinand of Spain, Cardinal- 
Archbishop of Toledo, Captain-General of Flanders and 
Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish forces there, was an 
extremely handsome and brilliant little man of about thirty, 
the Queen's favourite brother and the flower of his family. 
He died of fever in the campaign against Louis XIII, but 
not without suspicion of being poisoned by his own people. 
It is said that he was planning a separate treaty with France, 
to give him the independent sovereignty of Flanders, and 



6o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

that one of the details of this treaty was his marriage with 
Mademoiselle. He was not a priest, so that this arrange- 
ment would have been quite possible, and Mademoiselle 
declares that the King had decided upon it. 

However, these plans were cut short by tertian fever or a 
Spanish dose, and Louis took no pains to break the news 
gently to the Queen. 

" Your brother is dead." 

The abruptness may have hidden a touch of political 
regret, if nothing better. But the fact, a joy to France, 
that he was now the father of two Princes — Philippe, 
due d'Anjou, was born two years after the Dauphin — made 
Louis not any more considerate or agreeable to his wife. 
He scolded her, with threats of taking the children away, 
because the little Louis, one unlucky evening, cried at the 
sight of His Majesty in his night-cap. 

His health was growing weaker and his temper more 
gloomy. More and more completely, if often rebellious, 
soul and body were ruled by the Eminentissime. And yet 
when not following his armies in the south or east under his 
great Minister's orders, watching the war as it dragged 
along, Louis had still something of his old childishness, his 
love for amusements that most men scorned. Small matters 
of dress and personal ornament were great to him. In a 
way he was formal, though he could never make himself the 
centre and rule of Court etiquette, as his son did. 

One may fancy Louis XIII standing stiff and upright, the 
fingers of his left hand resting on a table where his black 
plumed hat lies. His handsome aquiline face is pale and 
melancholy. His dark brown hair, parted in the middle, falls 
smooth over his ears and curls round his neck. His right 
arm is hidden by a short purple cloak lined with white satin 
and deeply bordered with gold ; under this his shirt of white 
cambric and lace shows through the slashes and openings of 
a pale pink jacket with deep lace collar and cuffs. The 
jewelled cross of the royal order of the Saint-Esprii hangs 
from the broad blue ribbon on his breast His wide breeches, 




HENRI D'EFFIAT, MARQUIS DE CINQ-MARS 

Fi;OM AN ENGRAVING IJY LANGI.OIS 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 6i 

reaching to the knee, where the loose black boots, their tops 
filled with lace, almost meet them, are striped red and yellow. 
He wears a slight curled moustache and a little tuft on his 
chin ; this last fashion, which became so general, was of 
his own invention. 

He might be seen standing at a window, as his way was, 
saying dreamily, "Ennuyons-nous, ennuyons-nous"; and then 
came the fancy for some diversion, which very often bored the 
Court sufficiently. One day he was taken with a passion for 
shaving himself and everybody else. All his officers quickly 
lost the beards which had been worn since Henry IV, and 
were left with a moustache and a petit toupet ; this was called 
la royale, and through the middle years of the seventeenth 
century hardly a gentleman in France, or indeed in Europe, 
was to be seen without it. 

Hdlas, ma pauvre barbe, 
Qu'est-ce qui t'a faite ainsi ? 

C'est le grand roi Louis, 

Treizieme de ce nom, 
Qui toute a dbarbe sa maison. 

So sang Paris in the streets as the royal officers passed 
by. 

The bright and tragic figure of young Henry d'Effiat, Mar- 
quis de Cinq-Mars, the King's last favourite, the most widely 
pitied victim of Richelieu's vengeance and of Gaston's self- 
preserving caution, flashes like a meteor through the last 
years of the reign. The handsome boy of eighteen, his head 
a ripple of curls, his mind full of love-making and military 
ambition, was presented to the King by Richelieu with the 
intention that he should serve him as a spy. Till now, the 
King's favourites had been the Cardinal's enemies ; but he 
flattered himself that he had triumphed over the last of these 
by driving Mademoiselle de Hautefort from the Court, already 
free of her rival. Unconscious of the part he was intended 
to play, Cinq-Mars rushed boldly into the career that the 
King's favour, stormy and changeable as it was, opened 
before him. 



62 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

He was at first made Master of the Wardrobe ; then 
stepped from one high place to another till he was Grand 
Equerry — known as " M. le Grand " — and till his ambition, 
boundless as the life of glorious enjoyment which seemed to 
await his splendid youth, began to reach towards the highest 
offices in the kingdom, Constable of France, or even First 
Minister, the Cardinal's invalid detested life at an end. 
Everybody conspired to the spoiling of Cinq-Mars. He 
turned the heads of the Court beauties. Princess Marie de 
Gonzague, one of the three daughters of the Duke of Nevers 
and Mantua, thought seriously of marrying him when he 
should have climbed a little higher. When, on the contrary, 
he fell, she was obliged to beg from Madame d'Aiguillon the 
return of her letters. She was not, as Alfred de Vigny in his 
romance represents her, a girl of Henry d'Effiat's own age, 
but a woman eight years older, a flame of Monsieur's before 
his second marriage, now a little faded and disappointed, 
living in Paris on a small fortune, and waiting for a suitable 
husband. A few years later she became Queen of Poland. 
King Ladislas, old, fat, and gouty, offered his hand to several 
ladies in succession, first of all to Mademoiselle, who refused 
him scornfully. Poor Princess Marie, who was neither young, 
rich, nor great enough to despise a crown, even that of a pays 
barbare, repented heartily of her bargain. 

The airs and the ambitions of Cinq-Mars enraged the 
Cardinal, and when he was angry, no one could speak more 
plainly or scold more terribly. Cinq-Mars learned, to his 
immense indignation, for what base uses he had been brought 
to Court by the great man who now threatened to crush him 
for disobedience and ingratitude. He resolved to measure 
his strength against Richelieu's and to ruin the old friend who 
had become his enemy. He dared all, trusting in the King's 
affection, and really believing, it seems, that he too would not 
be sorry to see the Cardinal's fall. 

As to the nation, the majority of both high and low 
certainly hated the Eminentissime as an oppressor. It 
was him that they justly blamed, not the King, for the severe 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 63 

laws and heavy taxes which made life miserable at home, 
while on them were based the sovereign, centralised royal 
power and the foreign policy of victorious war with Spain 
and Austria which made France great abroad. The Queen, 
silent in the background, the nobles not actually dependent 
on Richelieu, the Princes, among whom the Due de Vendome 
had lately fled from his tyranny to England, the Parliament 
of Paris, whose pretensions to some independence he had 
mercilessly crushed — all would have gladly welcomed peace, 
and liberty from his iron rule. 

So grew up at Court, almost with the King's knowledge — 
for Madame de Motteville goes so far as to say that His 
Majesty " en etait tacitement le chef" — the last and most 
dangerous of all the conspiracies against Richelieu. Cinq- 
Mars, believing in his own star and putting his trust in 
princes, was its moving spirit ; his chief allies were Gaston 
d'Orleans, eager to seize the occasion of ruining his lifelong 
enemy, and the Due de Bouillon, who still held Sedan, a 
centre for discontented and rebellious princes. 

No doubt the King was the difficulty. He might have no 
reason to love his Minister ; he might listen to talk against 
him, and be amused ; but no one could be quite sure that 
the charm of a young favourite would be strong enough 
finally to bear him against the tide of all his traditions. 
The conspirators thought to make themselves safe, therefore, 
by a secret treaty with Spain. The King of Spain was to 
send an army into France from the east, to be under the 
command of Monsieur, with two other seigneurs whose 
names were not mentioned in the treaty. The Due de 
Bouillon would thus be enabled to hold his own, and Sedan 
would be a refuge for Monsieur and his friends, in case 
Richelieu proved too strong for them. If they succeeded 
in forcing on his disgrace, one article of the peace between 
Spain and France, immediately to follow, would be the 
restoration of all conquests made by the French in the war. 
Thus the foolish conspirators put themselves hopelessly in 
the wrong. 



64 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Given the two men, Richelieu and Louis XIII, and such a 
pair of allies as the Due d'Orleans and " M. le Grand," the 
failure of the plan was a certainty. The Cardinal's spies 
were equal to their reputation. Before many days had 
passed, the secret treaty with Spain was in his hands. 

He and the King were both in Provence, both ill, their 
last days drawing near. Instead of disgrace, the Cardinal 
found triumph over all his enemies, an absolute triumph, 
perhaps the greatest of his life. With the proofs of high 
treason laid before him, Louis found himself helpless to 
save " the amiable criminal " who had trusted his affection 
so far that he had made no attempt to escape. Cinq-Mars 
was doomed, and all the more hopelessly because Gaston 
bought his own safety by a full confession, giving the names 
of those concerned in the treaty, and renouncing them and 
all their works. The Due de Bouillon alone escaped, by 
surrendering Sedan to the King. Cinq-Mars, with his friend 
M. de Thou, several years older than himself, who had been 
guilty of knowing of the treaty and holding his tongue — for 
he said at his trial, " II m'a cru son ami unique et fidele, et 
je ne I'ai pas voulu trahir" — were left to the vengeance of 
the Cardinal, more powerful, by the King's special mandate, 
than he had ever been before. 

He was at this time seriously ill, and had only a few 
months to live. It was impossible for him to travel in any 
ordinary way, and when he set out on his last long journey, 
a royal progress in its dignity, from the south back to Paris, 
he was carried by twenty-four men in an enormous litter 
made of wood and lined with crimson and gold. In this 
travelling house there was room for a table and chair, besides 
the " magnificent bed " where the dying Cardinal lay ; thus 
he gave audiences, or dictated to his secretary as he was 
carried along. He was attended by a suite of nobles, 
cardinalistes, and by a large escort of troops. Men went 
before conveying loads of planks, with which they made an 
inclined way for carrying the litter into any house where 
His Eminence chose to stay. Gates of towns, not to mention 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 65 

doors and windows of houses, were generally far too small 
to admit the great structure ; in this case walls were pulled 
down to make the required entrance. It was out of the 
question that the Cardinal should be moved, shaken, or dis- 
turbed in any way. 

He made all the first part of his journey by water, his 
travelling litter being placed on board a gorgeous barge to be 
rowed up the Rhone, while the escort accompanied him, 
riding on each bank of the river. On a smaller barge, 
following his own, his young enemies were towed to their 
trial at Lyons. It was a dramatic and barbarous episode. 
The Cardinal's cruel arrogance, in making this public boast 
of his triumph, made a great impression on society. Madame 
de Motteville, moderate and discreet, expresses the best 
opinion of the time. 

" He fastened their boat to his own," she says, " after the 
same manner, but with no such glory, as the Roman Consuls 
when they bound to their chariot the captive kings they had 
conquered. This cruel action, which savoured of paganism, but 
of which a virtuous pagan would have been incapable, was a 
dishonour to his life. It showed his contempt for God's law, 
which forbids to a Christian not only personal revenge, but 
even any rejoicing over just vengeance. After thus parading 
his barbarous vanity as far as Lyons, he condemned them 
both to die upon the scaffold." 

The long pathetic story of the trial and death of Cinq- 
Mars and Francois de Thou has often been told. It thrilled 
France at the time, for the brilliant boy of twenty-two was 
much better liked than favourites often are. He had many 
friends, and told his confessor at the last that nothing sur- 
prised him so much as to find himself forsaken by them all. 
Only M. de Thou, who might have saved himself, stood by 
him and died with him. Half France, they say, looked on 
and wished that the plot had been successful ; but all France, 
at that moment, could not have saved a victim from Richelieu. 
Women, by whom Cinq-Mars was universally loved, wept for 
him. The behaviour of both friends at their death was calm 



66 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and noble, and they will always be remembered, it seems, 
rather as heroes than as traitors to their country. 

One has dwelt a little on this tragedy, partly because it 
was the chief talk of many months in 1642, when Mademoi- 
selle, a girl of fifteen, was fast becoming a personage at 
Court to be reckoned with, and partly because it had a 
specially painful effect upon her. It opened her eyes to her 
father's real character. She heard people say, and she saw 
for herself, that Monsieur, with a little courage and self-for- 
getfulness, could have saved Cinq-Mars and his friend. At 
least, the complete betrayal, the giving of the confederates' 
names, need not have been his doing. Terror of Richelieu, 
degraded expressions of repentance, a panic-stricken climb- 
ing to safety over the doomed heads of others — all this had 
been the end of every conspiracy into which Gaston had so 
lightly and willingly thrown himself It makes the whole 
thing more despicable that the King's only brother was never 
in any real personal danger. His life would never have been 
sacrificed to Richelieu's policy. 

When the King forgave Monsieur and allowed him to 
return to the Court, his innocent daughter expected to see 
him at least slightly depressed by the memory of his unlucky 
allies, " left on the road." Little she knew Gaston. He was 
gayer than ever ; honour and the past were absolutely 
nothing to him. He supped with Mademoiselle at the 
Tuileries, to the music of the royal string band, and under- 
stood nothing of the wondering reproach in his daughter's 
eyes. Much as she still loved her delightful father, enchanted 
as she was to be with him again — " I confess," she says, 
" that I could not see him without thinking of them, and 
that his joyousness saddened me in the midst of my 
own." 

The Cardinal-Due, having crushed his enemies, was borne 
back triumphantly to Paris, a dying man. Even now not 
satisfied with the completeness of his vengeance, he spent his 
last weeks in driving away from the Court all those officers 
who were known to have been friendly with Cinq-Mars, 




CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU 

FROM A rONTRAIT BY PHILIPPE DE CIJAMPAIGNE 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 67 

among them M. de Troisville, or Treville, the famous Captain 
of Musketeers. 

It seemed that the King could refuse him nothing now. 
From the magnificent Palais-Cardinal, where he lay dying, 
he directed the affairs of a future France, nominating his 
statesman-pupil Giulio Mazarini, the handsome, sleek Italian, 
to succeed himself as First Minister. His dying hand was 
stretched out in an edict to exclude Gaston d'Orleans from 
the regency, in case of the King's death, and this one, among 
the many commands given on his death-bed, was quickly 
carried out. Louis's deep distrust of his brother was not all 
owing to the Cardinal. Mademoiselle proposed to throw 
herself at the King's feet when he went in state to the Par- 
liament for the registration of this Declaration du Roi contre 
Monsieur, to implore him to stop short of so insulting an ex- 
tremity. Louis was informed of her intention, and forbade 
the troublesome scene. 

The Eniinentissime was dead, and France drew a long 
breath of relief and rejoicing. He had always lived more 
magnificently than the King, and his funeral, to the satisfac- 
tion of Paris, was as splendid as his life had been. He lay 
in state for a week, and all the world came to gaze at the 
clear-cut, emaciated face. Even after his burial in the 
Church of the Sorbonne, Paris hardly dared to believe he 
was dead. 

The King set his guards at the gates of the Palais- 
Cardinal, now, by its great owner's will, become the Palais- 
Royal, and went off to Saint-Germain with a few dry words 
of regret for the Minister who had made France feared in 
Europe, and had built up the system of absolute royal 
authority which lasted just one hundred and fifty years. 

" II est mort un grand politique." 

" L'^pre et redoutable Richelieu," says his enemy Retz, 
" avait foudroye plutot que gouverne les humains." 

Now all the prisoners expected to be released, the exiles 
hoped to be called home ; society was ready, with young 
princes and princesses at its head, to throw itself into all 



68 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

kinds of wild gaieties. Society had to wait some months, 
however, as well as most of the prisoners and exiles, though 
a few, such as Monsieur and the Due de Vendome with his 
sons, were allowed to return to the Court. Louis still ruled 
his kingdom from his lingering death-bed at Saint-Germain, 
and though Mazarin was outwardly all gentleness, the spirit 
of Richelieu still governed France through these two. 

Society, therefore, regarded Richelieu's death as the dawn, 
and looked forward to that of the King as the sunrise of its 
day. Those lovely hands of Anne of Austria, so long power- 
less, were sure to hold the reins lightly ; and as to Mazarin, 
even if he were to be First Minister, which was thought 
most improbable, nobody yet feared him. The princes 
began by despising him. He seemed to them little more 
than a clever, cringing Italian adventurer. 



CHAPTER VI 

" Une Ville inconnue, immense — 
Paris ! . . . " 

"Cette ville 
Aux longs cris 
Qui profile 
Son front gris, 
Des toits freles, 
Cent tourelles, 
Clochers greles, 
C'est Paris ! " 

" Tous ces noms dont pas un ne mourra, que c'est beau ! " 

THE STREETS OF PARIS— CORNEILLE — THE THEATRES — THE 
ACADEMY — THE HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET 

PARIS, in Mademoiselle's young days, had not advanced 
very far beyond the dirt and dangers of the Middle 
Ages. Though the great seventeenth-century rebuilding, 
which was to transform the city, had begun, it was still 
mostly a labyrinth of old, narrow streets, paved with worn 
stones slippery with the black, stinking, splashing mud for 
which Paris was notorious. " De meme que la ville est 
pleine de monde, les rues sont pleines de boue." Only at 
noonday the sun could shine down into these streets, over 
which the overhanging stories of high-gabled houses, with 
many painted signs creaking and swinging, leaned as if they 
would touch each other. Shops and stalls of every kind 
were crammed together on a level with the street ; dark, 
cutthroat-looking passages dived under black archways into 
dens unknown. Here the street wound along under the 
walls and turrets and past the immense gates of some 
nobleman's hotel ; there it was shadowed by the height of a 
church, a forest of Gothic pinnacles, a great tower where 

69 



70 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

the eternal calling of the bells, morning, noon, and night, 
almost deadened the other varied clamour, street-cries, talk 
and quarrelling, rumbling wheels and clattering feet, of the 
crowds below. 

As for them, they were of the kind that Captain Fracasse 
encountered, when he arrived in Paris, about this time, with 
his good friends the comedians. Coaches of varying dignity, 
some with running footmen and prancing horses, splendid 
nobles and beautiful ladies laughing through glass windows 
from the velvet-lined interior ; others shabby and sober, with 
leathern curtains to protect some learned doctor or man of 
business from the rude jokes of passers-by. Waggons loaded 
with stone, with logs, with wine-barrels, hay, straw, blocking 
the narrow way ; coachmen and carters shouting and swear- 
ing furiously. Men on horseback pushing foot-passengers 
to right and left ; chaises-d-porteurs, either private or on hire. 
These were very commonly used in Paris, the hired ones 
being numbered, like cabs ; for women and delicate people 
could not walk in the streets. Now and then, as Gautier 
vividly describes it, a herd of horned beasts comes bursting 
round a corner, plunging with lowered heads into the crowd, 
terrifying and terrified, with dogs barking at their heels and 
cudgels whacking their sides. Horses start and rear, and 
the confusion, worse than ever, is made desperate by the 
sudden rattle of a drum ; a company of soldiers, tambour en 
tcte, banners fluttering, dashes along on its way from one 
quarter of Paris to another. 

Some party of bravos and ragamuffins starts a sham fight 
in a suddenly opening square, or at the corner of a bridge 
over the Seine. " Tue, tue ! " they cry, and the silly crowd 
pushes and runs to see what is the matter. But these 
quarrelsome wretches are only the leaders of a band of 
coupe-bourses and tire-lames, who ply a brisk trade in the 
melee, and many a fool, when it is over, has lost his purse 
lined with money and his cloak lined with silk. 

This noisy life flowed out in all its variety on the quays and 
bridges, especially the Pont Neuf, white and brilliant in con- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 71 

trast with the blackness of the old streets. This popular 
playground was a haunt of beggars and horrible "freaks," 
quack-doctors and dentists, mountebanks and monkeys, bird- 
fanciers and all kinds of small trades and trickeries. On the 
parapets, under the eyes of King Henry on his famous horse 
of bronze, books and papers were sold. Here came the 
nouvellistes and the so-called poets, chattering and disputing, 
with their gazettes, libels, satires, pamphlets, political and 
society brochures, poems, songs, plays. "Bon ou mauvais, 
c'etait la " — on the Pont Neuf — " que battait le coeur de Paris 
populaire." Public opinion was made here— a power against 
which kings and laws sometimes fought in vain. 

The most remarkable sight on the bridge, and one of the 
most curious things in Paris, was the water-tower called La 
Samariiame, with its fountain, clock, and figures worked by 
machinery. The water flowed into a basin, over which 
leaned the Woman of Samaria. On the other side stood 
Our Lord, in conversation with her. These statues were in 
gilded lead. Above them were an astronomical dial and a 
clock-face ; showing the course of the sun and the moon, the 
year, the month, the day, the hour. At certain times, sculp- 
tured lions rolled their eyes and lashed their tails, music 
sounded from instruments touched by angels, and one by one 
appeared the sacred scenes of the New Testament, from the 
Nativity to the Ascension. But at every hour the sweet 
chimes of the clock rang silvery along the bridge, and the 
Jacquemart, lifting his hammer, solemnly struck the bell. 

From the Pont Neuf, one could look round with King 
Henry on this small seventeenth-century Paris, all wild 
romance and gaiety, beautiful in clear light and shadow, the 
centre of life and thought, la Ville Lumiere even then. The 
Seine flowed stately from east to west between banks that 
were picturesque and varied, with gardens and trees and old 
corners of wall and towers, for the quays did not extend far. 
There was a thronging life of boats and barges on the river, 
a great highway, and if the water was dirty enough, there 
was no lack of colour and bright reflections. 



72 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

On the right bank, from the heavy keep of the Bastille 
near the Porte Saint-Antoine, past the Place de Greve with 
the new Hotel de Ville on the left, and on the right the now 
fashionable quarter, the Marais, where society entertained 
itself in the high houses of the Place Royale, built by Henry 
IV — narrow streets led on to the main artery of Paris, the 
Rue Saint-Honor6. There, close to the Porte Saint-Honor^, 
stood the new palace built by Cardinal de Richelieu. He 
demolished, in building it, part of the old city wall, and made 
Paris very angry. 

To the north was the quarter of the Markets, farther off 
still the fortress-prison of the Temple, with an aristocratic 
neighbourhood of its own, and the streets and lanes leading 
towards St. Denis. Nearer the river a congeries of hotels, 
churches, hospitals, some — such as the famous old Quinze- 
Vingts — surrounded with walled orchards and gardens, 
pressed up on the courts and soaring roofs of the old palace 
of the Louvre. The Tuileries, gay and graceful, ended the 
buildings on that side. During Mademoiselle's youth, while 
the Tuileries was still her Paris home, a great building and 
enlarging went on under Richelieu's orders at the Louvre, 
and for this reason Louis XIII and his Queen held their 
court chiefly at Saint-Germain. The splendour of the royal 
Louvre was dim, at this time, compared with that of the 
Palais-Cardinal, where Richelieu lived with all the airs of 
Royalty. Now, and for long after, the space between the 
Louvre and the Tuileries, united by the new gallery facing 
the river, was blocked up with streets and tall houses, several of 
them the hotels of nobles and princes of the blood. Here, 
next but one to the corner of the old Rue St. Thomas du 
Louvre, was the school of Paris for politeness and the finer 
literature, the famous Hotel de Rambouillet. 

On the left or south bank, the actual town had always been 
much smaller than on the opposite shore. There was the 
University, the quartier Latin^ beloved of Bohemians, the 
many colleges, the Sorbonne, terrible to heretics ; there was 
the beautiful Hotel de Cluny, hired by many famous person- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 73 

ages from the Abbots of Cluny, who did not want it ; there 
were churches crowded together, and convents and abbeys in- 
numerable. The ancient Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres 
covered many acres of the southern faubourg. The Bene- 
dictine Abbey of the Val-de-Grace, the Queen's favourite 
foundation, was there, and the great Carmelite Convent so 
well known in Court and society, where in after years Louise 
de la Valliere took the veil. There also were palaces with 
vast gardens, old and new, finished and unfinished ; the 
palaces of Queen Marguerite de Valois and of the Due de 
Nevers ; and farther north Queen Marie de Medicis' new 
palace of the Luxembourg, which after her death in 1642 
became the property of her son Gaston d'Orleans. 

Where Henry's statue stood, his bridge touched the 
western point of the island city, the heart of old Paris from 
its earliest foundation ; and turning eastward, looking past 
the stately Place Dauphine, which he built, one saw in the 
near distance the towers of Notre Dame, and nearer still, the 
dreamy grace of the Sainte Chapelle with its beautiful roof 
springing into the air, the wonderful legacy of St. Louis and 
the Middle Ages. 

Round it were grouped the buildings of the Palais de 
Justice, the " Palais " par excellence of the old city ; once the 
residence of kings, and now, in the seventeenth century, the 
Parliament-house of France, its great hall lately rebuilt after 
the terribly destructive fire of 161 8. Here too were the law 
courts ; lawyers and clients bustled through the halls and 
galleries and passages ; men of business and of letters 
strolled and talked and disputed there. Some of the most 
fashionable shops of Paris, as we know from Corneille's 
comedies, were to be found in one of the galleries ; there 
came the young beauties from the Place Royale, and leaving 
coach and chair at the entrance, amused themselves and their 
lively suivantes with purchases of lace and embroidery, while 
their lovers, close by, made a pretence of turning over and 
criticising the bookseller's last volume of poems, or choosing 
smart gloves and ribbons at the mercer's next door. 



74 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

All the airs and affectations, the fashionable chatter, the 
favourite subjects, the manners and customs, the morals and 
principles, of the society in which Mademoiselle grew up, are 
wonderfully described for us in those early comedies of 
Corneille. They are made out of everyday adventures, " a 
peine romancees." France had never yet had a play-writer 
who drew his inspiration straight from real life. Pierre 
Corneille, whose home was at Rouen, only came to Paris for 
a few months in the year, employed by Cardinal de Richelieu, 
with other hack poets, to put his rather ordinary ideas into 
theatrical shape. But he soon grew into greater things; and 
from being the product of his time, became its leading in- 
fluence. Corneille's theatre^ popular beyond all precedent, 
and without any rival to signify, carried forward on different 
lines the civilising work that L'Astree had begun. 

Honor6 d'Urfe, a " little gentleman of Forez," a friend of 
St. Frangois de Sales, divided with Madame de Rambouillet 
and her salon the honour of leading France out of the worst 
savagery and corruptness of manners which stained society 
in the sixteenth century, under the Court of the Valois. He 
enthroned sentimental passion in the place of violence and 
brutality. His romance in many volumes kept its popularity 
almost up to the Revolution ; and in his own time he softened 
the whole spirit of society. Real life, however, and character 
worthy of the name, had very little place in his imaginative 
world. 

And here comes in the grandeur of Corneille. His moral 
views and his ideas of humanity were on an infinitely higher 
plane than those of d'Urfe. Not passion, but duty, was the 
power enthroned by him. 

" Faites votre devoir, et laissez faire aux dieux," cries 
Horace, the old hero, to the young men as they go out to 
fight for Rome against Alba, Honour, heroism, self-sacrifice, 
loyalty to God and to the laws of human society ; generosity 
to enemies ; the supreme power of will, the possibility and 
the duty of conquering a man's own strongest passions ; these 
were the lessons taught by Corneille to France at this time. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 75 

Even in the comedies, light and easy as they are, you find 
the new reign of self-control ; the tragedies, which were all 
the rage in Paris during Louis XIII's last years, are from 
beginning to end heroic in tone. Society found a new in- 
spiration in them. Men and women, some with sincerity, 
some merely to follow the fashion, formed themselves on the 
model of Corneille's heroes and heroines. His influence can 
be traced in the lives and the doings of many great people 
of his day. His stateliness and heroic dash had a wonderful 
effect on minds unsatisfied by love complications and long- 
drawn-out sweetnesses. It was as if the magnificent stern- 
ness of old Rome and the chivalry of the Middle Ages had 
come back into the world together, speaking in that verse of 
noble quality, with that frank, straightforward simplicity, 
which thrilled the young ears of Mademoiselle Marie de 
Rabutin-Chantal and Mademoiselle de Montpensier. 

If Corneille's plays were a new inspiration for France, 
they, on the other hand, were inspired by her. " II nous 
offre une fidele et saisissante peinture de cette France de 
Richelieu, de cette classe aristocratique qui inaugurait la 
monarchic absolue et la vie de societe." So says M. Lanson, 
a delightful critic and lover of old Father Corneille. Read- 
ing the plays with this idea, one finds history and politics, as 
well as manners, shadowed there : a natural consequence of 
the impressions made upon Corneille's mind by the events 
passing around him. Writing of mediaeval Spaniards and 
ancient Romans, he was always a man of his own time, 
influenced by all the rules and etiquettes and prejudices of 
his day. His plays had their moral for statesmen, as well 
as for nobles and great ladies. Richelieu, when he laid 
orders on his young Academy to condemn Le Cid, was 
angry with the poet's glorification of Spain, as well as with 
the bold ignoring of his own laws against the duel. The 
Eminentissime had also private and meaner motives, but 
these show the actuality which was felt by Corneille's con- 
temporaries to exist in every line he wrote. 

With all its passion for things theatrical, Paris of the 



76 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

earlier seventeenth century had only two theatres. These 
were both on the right bank, and not very distant from each 
other. The famous Hotel de Bourgogne, of which a tower 
still remains, was in the old Rue Mauconseil, in the quarter 
of the Halles, near the Church of Saint-Eustache. Its 
rival, the Theatre du Marais, was in the Vieille Rue du 
Temple, not far from the Place Royale. Both streets were 
dangerous at night, and the audience at both theatres was 
of the wildest. Until Corneille's plays began to be acted at 
both, women of the better sort could not attend either ; but 
by the last year of Louis XIII manners had mended here, 
as elsewhere. Le Cid was acted at the Marais in 1637, when 
in spite of the Cardinal and the Academy Paris went wild 
with enthusiasm ; "beau comme le Cid'" was the expression 
of the moment. Poly&ucte appeared at the Hotel de Bour- 
gogne in the winter of 1642. Thus each theatre could boast 
of having produced at least one chef-d'oeuvre ; as to the 
other comedies and tragedies honours were divided. It 
seems, however, that the Hotel de Bourgogne stood first in 
public opinion, and had the best claim to be called the fore- 
runner of the Frangais : " le vrai lieu de la com^die est 
I'Hotel de Bourgogne." Neither the one nor the other was 
built as a theatre ; the company of the Bourgogne hired the 
large hall of the Hotel from the Confraternity of the Passion, 
who had bought it a century before ; and the famous actor 
Mondory — who played Rodrigue in Le Cid — had shown the 
public the way to a tennis court in the Marais quarter which 
he had fitted up for his troupe of comedians. 

Corneille was to be seen at his own representations, with 
his grave Norman face, long nose, good eyes, hair thin on 
the top, but curling on his wide collar. He had an anxious, 
almost appealing look ; the visible self-diffidence so sharply 
touched by the Academy's absurd, pedantic verdict on Le Cid 
— the play was improbable, lacked the unities, might very 
expediently not have been written at all. 

It was a foolish beginning for the Academy. But after 
all, these voices had something in them of prophecy. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 77 

Corneille's influence on the French literary mind did not 
last beyond a generation, though the people and a few choice 
spirits love him to this day. His genius, on its theatrical 
side, was more Spanish than French. Queen Anne had a 
passion for his plays, and they were constantly acted at 
Court, as well as in the houses of great people. It was here, 
not at the public theatres, which princesses did not attend, 
that Mademoiselle caught heroic ideas and added more than 
a dash of high-flown adventurousness to her natural touch 
of eccentricity. And it may be added that all she learned 
from " notre vieil ami Corneille," as Madame de Sevigne 
called him regretfully, was honest, honourable, and clean. 

The theatre of Corneille's day was an oblong hall with a 
platform at the end as stage, approached by a flight of 
steps, on each side of which sat the musicians. Two pieces 
of tapestry, drawn to each side, made the curtain, with the 
royal arms above. There were no seats on the floor of the 
hall, but down each side ran a double row of galleries, the 
upper part divided into boxes. These were closely packed 
with men of fashion and with more or less elegant pr^cieuses, 
as ready to criticise as any literary women of to-day. People 
of very high rank, social or religious, came masked, or were 
hidden behind a grated screen ; a cardinal or an abbess was 
not impossible to find there. The public crammed the lower 
galleries and covered the floor and climbed on the stage : 
good citizens of Paris with their wives and families, mixed in 
a motley crowd of young dandies, soldiers, thieves, " pastry- 
cooks, poets," cadets de Gascogne, actors, fiddlers, pages, all 
and each bent on amusing themselves in their own way quite 
as much as on listening to Corneille. Royal musketeers 
strutted about and bullied their neighbours. 

In a distinguished place above the hurly-burly sat members 
of the new Academy which was to make modern literature, 
though it began by refusing to elect Corneille. There might 
be seen — at least, if his Calvinist principles did not keep him 
away — " the illustrious M. Valentin Conrart," the founder of 
the Forty Immortals, who, a small group in those early days. 



78 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

used to meet at his house before his authority had to give 
way to that of the great patron, Richelieu. There was ugly 
little M. Godeau, Bishop of Vence and Grasse, known at the 
Hotel de Rambouillet as " le nain de Julie," who divided his 
time between verse-writing in Paris and preaching in his far- 
away dioceses. There was M. de Gombauld, a well-known 
poet in his day; tall, grave, ceremonious, nicknamed by 
Madame de Rambouillet " le beau Tenebreux." There was 
M, Chapelain, mean in looks, dressed in old and extra- 
ordinary clothes, one of the Academy's most learned and 
active members, to be slain as a poet, in later years, by the 
satire of Boileau. And there were more Immortals, often as 
ridiculous as they were literary, but respected and run after 
by the world of their day. 

The mocking spirit of Gaul showed itself in one of Mon- 
sieur's diversions. He planned a rival Academy of the most 
ignorant men he could find ; and it was still quite possible to 
hit on gentlemen who could hardly read or write. He gave 
a sum of money to Captain Brulart du Boulay, one of this 
distinguished band, that he might supply books, paper, and 
ink for the room in which they were to meet. As none of 
these were forthcoming, Le Boulay was called to account. 
He was clever, if not learned. The words " treasurer " and 
"thief" meant in his opinion the same thing. He frankly 
owned that the money had gone no further than his own 
purse. He had to run away from the laughing fury of 
Monsieur and the rest; but the new Academy "alia a vau 
I'eau." 

People have laughed at the Hotel de Rambouillet and the 
advanced women whose exaggerated imitators became les 
Precieuses Ridicules. But Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de 
Rambouillet, was really a remarkable person, and her century 
owed her a great deal. Her influence and that of her polite 
and literary salon was at its height in the last years of 
Louis XIH's reign. At the time, no one could have held 
such a position as hers who was not a great lady as well as a 
clever woman, and she was equal to the highest in France, 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 79 

the blood royal and a few duchesses only excepted. Her 
father, Jean de Vivonne, Marquis de Pisani — a Frenchman, 
in spite of his Italian title — had married Giulia Savelli, a 
noble Roman, widow of one of the Orsini family ; thus 
Madame de Rambouillet was connected with Princess Maria 
FeHce Orsini, the unhappy Duchesse de Montmorency. 

Her husband, the Marquis de Rambouillet, of the ancient 
family of Angennes, and in his father's lifetime Vidame du 
Mans, has been overshadowed by his wife's fame. He was a 
tall, good-looking, sharp-faced man, a courtier and a diplomat, 
bold, quarrelsome, extravagant. With all this, he was a 
prince among husbands, and continued all his life to be 
Madame de Rambouillet's devoted admirer. Everything 
that she and his pretty daughters did was beautiful in his 
eyes. His two sons brought sorrow. One died of the 
plague at eight years old ; the other, known as Marquis de 
Pisani, became deformed through the carelessness of his 
nurse, and was the one short and ugly member of the 
family. He grew up a gallant young fellow and a good 
soldier, however ; he was a devoted follower of Conde — then 
Due d'Enghien — and died fighting under him at the battle of 
Nordlingen. 

M. de Rambouillet possessed the splendid and almost royal 
chateau of his name, twenty-five miles from Paris, where 
Frangois I died. But Madame de Rambouillet cared little 
for her woods and parks and gardens, except as the scene of 
the beautiful fetes and surprises with which she amused her 
friends in summer weather. She lived almost entirely in 
Paris, busy with her mission of encouraging literature and 
refining society. The old hotel belonging to the family 
having been pulled down by Richelieu when he built the 
Palais-Cardinal, she rebuilt after her own design the Hotel 
Pisani, her father's old house in the Rue St. Thomas du 
Louvre. It was known ever after as the Hotel de 
Rambouillet. 

The Marquise added to her many talents that of being 
a clever and original architect. She built her house on a 



8o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

new, dignified, and intelligent plan with a view to society 
and conversation. No more low rooms and dark poky- 
passages, such as had contented the Middle Ages and the 
Renaissance even in their palaces. High rooms, high 
windows, high doors, a stately suite of salons opening one 
into the other, no longer divided by a central staircase. 
We are told that the Hotel de Rambouillet was the model 
for builders in the second quarter of the century. Queen 
Marie de M^dicis, building her palace of the Luxembourg, 
sent her architect to take a lesson there. 

Madame de Rambouillet was a near neighbour of Made- 
moiselle at the Tuileries, and from one of her large new 
windows had a view of Mademoiselle's own garden. She 
also looked into the orchard and garden of the Quinze- 
Vingts, the great hospital for the blind, and into the court 
and garden of M, de Chevreuse. He was unneighbourly 
enough to block out her view by building a projection from 
his own house, and this was thought the more unkind, as 
M. de Rambouillet had saved his life, years before, in a 
skirmish with some personal enemies. But Madame de 
Rambouillet was not very popular with the old Court world, 
which affected scorn of her ideas and envied her influence. 

For her part, she went little to Court, preferring books 
and civilised talk to intrigues and gossip, coarse jokes and 
frivolity. But the best of the younger half of society, royal 
and noble, came to her, and met in her salons the men and 
women whose only distinction was literary. There, besides 
the members of the young Academy, every author or person 
of intelligence was welcomed. There poets read their works 
and listened to criticism — sometimes hardly worth having, 
as when Corneille was advised to lock up Polyeucte in a 
drawer. There the pedantic Menage strutted and boasted, 
and there clever little Voiture laughed and flirted and 
amused the company with many impertinences. There the 
admired " Cavalier Marino " introduced the flowery language 
of his Adone. His great book, "forty-five thousand lines of 
word painting," lies before one now as it may have lain on 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 8i 

Madame de Rambouillet's table ; bound in vellum fresh and 
strong after nearly three hundred years, the title-page 
splendidly printed in red and black by Oliviero de Varano — 
Olivier de Varennes — at Paris, in the Rue St. Jacques, and 
bearing the revered name of His Most Christian Majesty 
" Lodovico Decimoterzo, Re di Francia e di Navarra." 
Within there is a dedication to Queen Maria de' Medici, the 
poet's especial patron, and a long introductory discourse in 
French by Chapelain, then a young man. For the Adone 
was published in 1623, years before Mademoiselle and her 
contemporaries learned manners at the Hotel de Rambouillet. 
And Marini was dead, leaving his preciosity as a bad legacy 
behind him. 

One of the popular members of the Rambouillet society 
was Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, a type of the inconsistencies 
of the time. The violent energy of his family, the obstinate 
thoroughness which made his grandfather a fighting Huguenot 
and his sister the reforming Abbess of the famous community 
of Port Royal, seems to have led this man from one extreme 
to another. He was a courtier, a follower of Richelieu, a 
friend of Monsieur — the combination was difficult — an out- 
spoken admirer of that stern Augustinian, the disgraced 
Abbe de St. Cyran ; and finally, tired of compromises, throw- 
ing his whole soul into the passionate religion of the Port 
Royalists, he retired to Port Royal des Champs and became 
one of that band of hermits whose bones were dug up and 
scattered to the winds in the last years of Louis XIV, now 
a child learning to walk. It is curious to remember that 
d'Andilly tried hard for the appointment of tutor to the 
Dauphin. The Arnauld influence on Louis XIV might 
have had strange effects from a religious point of view. 

It was Robert d'Andilly's cousin, Pierre Arnauld de Corbe- 
ville, a well-known soldier and courtier, Madame de Ram- 
bouillet's carabin-poete, who one day brought from Dijon a 
boy of sixteen, Bossuet by name, that he might amuse the 
society by preaching to it. This sermon, which probably 
bored Mademoiselle de Montpensier, for she was of the 

G 



82 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

same age as the preacher and a frequent guest at the Hotel, 
was not young Bossuet's first attempt. He had prechotte 
since he was twelve years old. Among his listeners may 
also have been the gay and smiling Mademoiselle de Chantal 
at seventeen, to be married in a few months to the Marquis 
de Sevigne. Older and more critical, there was the romantic 
and sensitive Madame de Sable. There were also Mademoi- 
selle de Scudery and her excellent but insupportable brother 
Georges, with airs of oracle and matamore. 

The once beautiful Mademoiselle Paulet with her mass of 
red-gold hair, Madame de Rambouillet's converted protegee, 
addressed by the poets as " adorable lionne," was still an 
attractive presence, though far from young. She was known 
among the Precieuses as Parthenie, and her exquisite voice in 
singing to the lute and the theorbo was one of the charms of 
the Chambre Bleue. 

Among the great personages of the Court who most fre- 
quented it were the Princesse de Conde with her daughter 
and eldest son. Its atmosphere was a fine training in 
manners and intelligence, for the Marquise would endure no 
lack of either. But Madame la Princesse, the first lady in 
France after the Queen and Mademoiselle, whose beauty, like 
Helen's, had once nearly set Europe in flames, was a woman 
of some real distinction, and knew how to appreciate this 
bold advance from the coarseness of a world she knew too 
well. As to refinement and education, her children had a 
poor example in their father, the first Prince of the blood. 
Henry Prince de Conde was a clever, resolute man, but mean 
in his character, odious in his manners, and dirty and 
neglected in his dress and appearance. None of the Conde 
men were remarkable for good looks. But the young Louis, 
Due d'Enghien, though short and not really handsome, had 
the bright wits and the daring, dashing charm of a Mont- 
morency. 

In the winter of 1642 he and his fascinating sister, Anne- 
Genevieve de Bourbon, were both already married, she to the 
middle-aged Due de Longueville, he to Richelieu's young 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 83 

niece, Claire-Clemence de Maille-Breze, who was still at the 
Carmelite Convent, playing with dolls and learning to read 
and write. But the brother and sister continued to be 
Madame de Rambouillet's most welcome and attractive 
guests. They were too clever, too clear-minded, to be 
touched by the later affectations of that artificial society, but 
they knew how to take the best of it. The Due d'Enghien 
was Corneille's most sincere admirer, and Bossuet's lifelong 
friend. 

It seems that Cardinal de Richelieu viewed the assemblies 
at the Hotel de Rambouillet with a certain anxiety. If the 
Marquise and her family were above any suspicion of politi- 
cal intrigue, it was not so with all her guests. Richelieu once 
sent Pere Joseph to her on a secret mission, to inquire into 
what she knew of the views and actions of Madame la 
Princesse, and to point out that by acting as his spy she 
might secure certain advantages for her husband. He 
applied to the wrong person. Madame de Rambouillet told 
him politely but decidedly that " le metier d'espion " was one 
which did not suit her. 

Madame de Rambouillet was a tall, handsome woman 
with weak eyes and a thin skin. The peculiar features of the 
famous Chambre Bleue were owing to her dread of light and 
heat. We owe the best account of that shrine of conversa- 
tion to Mademoiselle, who described it many years later in 
her playful little book, La Princesse de Paphlagonie. Made- 
moiselle, tomboy as she was, and a Princess of the vieille 
roche, with little respect for the new refinement or care for the 
new literature — except so far as Corneille touched her heroic 
side— had a real admiration for the divine ArtJienice — an 
anagram of Catherine — and lingered quite affectionately on 
the details of her sacred corner. 

The room was large, and hung with blue velvet ; in former 
days, red and tawny were the only correct colours. The high 
windows, from floor to ceiling, opened on a beautiful garden, 
over the walls of which other gardens made a pleasant green 
view. In an alcove darkened by screens sat "the Athenian 



84 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

goddess," the mistress of the house ; here, in groups of two 
or three, her guests came to talk with her. She was 
surrounded by portraits of people she loved ; as she gazed 
on these, her very look was a benediction. The rarest books 
lay near her on little tables ; all round about stood crystal 
vases full of the loveliest flowers of each season. 

It all sounds rather modern ; but this was the inner sanc- 
tuary where the finest minds of Paris and the provinces, what- 
ever their rank in society, learned to talk and laugh and weep 
and poetise and criticise and flatter, all with the grace and 
sparkle of a young age. For Madame de Rambouillet was 
the leader of a new Renaissance in manners and literature, 
and men and women of letters owe to her the first real 
recognition of their dignity. Madame Arvede Barine says 
truly that " we see at a glance the immense length of road 
traversed since that day when ' the incomparable Arth6nice ' 
chose to invite people on their personal merit alone." 

It is not very strange, perhaps, that Mademoiselle Julie, 
her mother's brilliant satellite, delayed from year to year her 
marriage with the faithful Marquis de Montausier, impatiently 
waiting in his beautiful scarlet coat. As Madame de Ram- 
bouillet grew older, and shrank more from the troublesome 
rays of the sun, Julie became the active centre of her large 
hospitality. Probably no woman not actually a great beauty 
has ever been more universally admired. She was witty and 
graceful, a perfect dancer, a delightful story-teller, and of a 
frank, straightforward character. The only persons who dis- 
liked her were the victims of sharp speeches or practical 
jokes ; the famous Guirlande de Julie^ of which the manu- 
script still exists, shows how her crowd of grateful poets 
honoured Mademoiselle de Rambouillet. 

The Marquise contented herself with one daughter at 
home, and disposed of the other four in convents. Partly 
through Mademoiselle Julie's interest with Madame d'Aiguil- 
lon, two of these young ladies received abbeys. Claire-Diane, 
Abbess of Yeres, made a terrible mess of her religious 
affairs, and her convent became a byword for disorder and 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 85 

mismanagement. She was " une fort deraisonnable personne." 
She spent much of her time in lodgings in Paris, quarrelled 
violently with her family, and was for some time shut up 
in a religious house in Paris by order of the Parliament. 
Louise- Isabelle and Catherine-Charlotte, quiet and well- 
behaved young women, who took their calling more seriously, 
were at first nuns under their sister's stormy rule at Yeres, 
but were afterwards removed to the Abbey of St. Etienne, 
near Reims. Louise became Abbess there, and in after 
years her sister succeeded her. The youngest, Angelique- 
Clarice, was rescued by Madame de Montausier's marriage 
from a life for which she had no vocation. She came from 
her convent to take Julie's place at the Hotel de Rambouillet, 
but did not inherit her popularity. Though very clever and 
amusing, she was neither pretty nor amiable. Some years 
later she married the Comte de Grignan, whom the world 
knows better through his third wife, Frangoise Marguerite 
de Sevigne. 



CHAPTER VII 

1643 

" Reprenons la danse, 
AUons, c'est assez : 
Le printemps commence, 
Les Rois sont passes." 

COURT MOURNING — THE DEATH OF MADAME DE SAINT-GEORGES — 
MADAME DE FIESQUE — THE FAMILY OF GUISE — THE DEATH OF THE 
KING 

MADEMOISELLE, quick and intelligent as she was, 
knew little of life as a spoilt child of fifteen. She 
knew nothing, except by hearsay, of death and of mourn- 
ing ; and though there never was a more " real Princess " as 
to keeping the rules of Court etiquette, it was impossible for 
her to feel much grief when Queen Marie de Medicis, her 
hardly remembered grandmother, died at Brussels in 1642. 

The King, who had consented to his mother's long exile 
and had allowed her to die in something very like poverty, 
insisted on the most formal ceremonies of Court mourning. 
Mademoiselle, the first Princess of the blood, had to shut 
herself up for some hot July days in a dark room, entirely 
hung with black. She found it very dull, for the awkward 
circumstances — the Cinq-Mars affair being at its height, 
Monsieur in disgrace and Richelieu all-powerful — frightened 
away the crowd of courtiers who generally paid their respects 
on these occasions. Mademoiselle enjoyed no ridiculous 
scenes, no stifled, indecent laughter, no confusion of visitors 
staggering in quite blind from the daylight, some bowing 
respectfully to the chairs, others to the bed-posts — comedies 
of mourning such as delighted the Court chroniclers of her 
century. 

86 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 87 

In the February after Richelieu's death and Monsieur's 
return to the Court, Mademoiselle had her first experience 
of personal grief and of change in her surroundings. 

The carnival was very gay in Paris that year, the ogre 
being removed, though his master lingered in melancholy de- 
cline at Saint-Germain. The gayest event was the marriage 
of Paul de Clermont, son of Madame de Saint-Georges, 
who bore his grandmother's title of Montglat, with Made- 
moiselle de Cheverny, a handsome, black-eyed girl high in 
Mademoiselle's favour. Both bride and bridegroom were 
people of some celebrity. The Marquis de Montglat wrote 
some of the best memoirs of the time, and his wife became 
a favourite subject of the pen-portraits which were so fashion- 
able in the years after the Fronde. In Mademoiselle's own 
portrait of her old friend one finds pleasant memories of the 
Chateau de Cheverny, " un palais enchante," with all its 
brilliant diversions. There, under the care of an adoring 
father, Mademoiselle Cecile had spent the perfectly happy 
childhood which made her critical of life afterwards. There 
Mademoiselle had shared her amusements, in the first never- 
forgotten summer she spent in Touraine. The most constant 
of women, and by no means blind or stupid, she never gave 
up a friend because of her faults ; but if certain scandalous 
histories are true, Madame de Montglat was hardly worthy 
of her esteem. However, if Mademoiselle had chosen her 
friends and companions for their strict morality, she would 
have possessed few indeed. 

The marriage delighted her, as Madame de Montglat took 
up her abode at the Tuileries, and was an agreeable addition 
to the little Court there. But the pleasant arrangement did 
not last long. The health of Madame de Saint-Georges had 
been failing all the winter, and the cold mists of February, 
probably with chills caught at her son's wedding gaieties, 
brought on inflammation which was very quickly fatal. At 
the last, the fever and delirium having passed off. Made- 
moiselle joined the dying woman's family beside her bed. 
Day had not begun to dawn over the roofs of the city. 



88 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Madame de Saint-Georges had received the Viaticum 
devoutly, making her peace w^ith God ; and now turned her 
thoughts, even more than to her own children, to the adopted 
child who knelt beside her, kissing her with passionate sobs 
and receiving with the rest a mother's blessing. It was a 
sad farewell ; for no one knew better than Madame de Saint- 
Georges in what a world, and to the care of what a father, 
the Princess's best friend was leaving her. 

The Marquise had not long been dead when Monsieur, 
roused by the news at an unnaturally early hour, arrived at 
the Tuileries. Nervous, excitable, indolent, he was much 
worried by finding himself, her natural guardian, in charge of 
a tall young daughter in floods of tears. He hurried her at 
once out of the palace, with all the cold-hearted horror of 
death which seems to have belonged to French royalties, and 
lodged her and her attendants, as a temporary refuge, in his 
own apartment at the Hotel de Guise. This, afterwards 
rebuilt and known as the Hotel de Soubise, was a large and 
curious old house in the quarter of the Temple, on which 
Monsieur had some claim through his mother-in-law, the 
Duchesse de Guise ; but it seems to have held many other 
lodgers, for he could only find room for his daughter and 
Mademoiselle de Saint-Louis by removing himself to the 
" Baths " near by. 

These bathing establishments, of which there were several 
in Paris, seem to have been something between a Turkish 
bath, a fashionable club, and an hotel. People spent a night 
there before and after a long journey ; people took refuge 
there from troublesome friends, beggars or creditors, or even 
from the curious eye of the public. There one could be 
incognito, " servi, choye," plunged in luxury, obeyed at a sign 
or a glance by silent servants. Such a lodging suited Mon- 
sieur well enough. 

Mademoiselle was not left long at the Hotel de Guise ; it 
was indeed hardly the place for a young girl who had lost 
her governess. She found time, however, to pay a visit to the 
Comtesse de Fiesque, an elderly and agreeable widow, much 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 89 

out of health, who was living there. This lady had been an 
intimate friend of Madame de Saint-Georges, and was con- 
nected, through the family of Guise, with Mademoiselle her- 
self. She had been a lady-in-waiting to her mother, the first 
Madame, and seems to have had every claim to the vacant 
appointment. Mademoiselle was aware of this. Having 
been conveyed from the Hotel de Guise to a more suitable 
shelter with the Carmelite nuns of Saint-Denis, she wrote to 
her father and to the Queen, asking that either Madame de 
Fiesque or Madame de Tillieres, her sister-in-law, might 
become her governess. She frankly confesses that she was a 
little taken in by the result, as she much preferred Madame 
de Tillieres. She had felt bound to pay Madame de Fiesque 
the compliment of mentioning her name, with the conviction 
that she was too old and too ill to be appointed. But 
Mademoiselle knew little of her sex and her world. When 
Madame de Fiesque received from Monsieur the offer of the 
post, her ailments disappeared by magic. Life had still 
something in store for the invalid old lady ; the education of 
the first girl in France was worth some nervous exertion. 

Mademoiselle spent a rather dismal week at the convent, 
no doubt bored by the various dunces of quality, who, like 
the Duchesse d'Enghien, were being taught to read and 
write there. Then a messenger from Monsieur brought her 
the news of Madame de Fiesque's appointment. She re- 
ceived it politely, sent her compliments, and desired that 
she might be fetched the next day. Madame de Fiesque 
arrived in due course, and was heartily welcomed by her 
pupil. The regime began peacefully enough. The new 
governess was a delightful talker, full of stories of the old 
world she knew well. For a short time Mademoiselle found 
life easy and pleasant. She had also the companionship of 
Madame de Montglat, who remained with her at the 
Tuileries. 

But the light rule — management, rather — of Madame de 
Saint-Georges, always gay, indulgent, and respectful, had 
passed away for ever. Madame de Fiesque found its results 



90 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

shocking. Her charge was self-willed, independent, haughty, 
and positive to an unbearable degree. She thought herself 
grown up, while scarcely out of childhood ; her manners 
and language were boyish. No sooner had Madame de 
Fiesque taken the reins really in her hands, than she began 
to make her spirited pupil feel them. 

First she made a list of Mademoiselle's jewellery, that 
nothing might be given away without her leave. Then she 
took the key of her writing-desk, and insisted on seeing all 
the letters she wrote and received. She chose to preside 
over the visits of her young friends, and found fault with 
the bagatelles they talked about. Mademoiselle bore these 
oppressions at first patiently, and kept her temper until the 
not unlikely event of a quarrel about Madame de Montglat 
and her relations. It would have been more in the interests 
of peace if they had all left the palace at the change of 
government. Mademoiselle might have been broken- 
hearted, but Madame de Fiesque would have had the fair 
start which certainly was denied her. Outbursts of jealousy, 
complaints on both sides, were the natural consequence. 
Mademoiselle spoke her mind to her governess " assez 
respectueusement," and was answered with sharpness. Made- 
moiselle had a cold ; the doctor ordered some medicine, 
which she decHned to take. Then Madame de Fiesque 
committed the unpardonable offence of treating her as a 
child ; she locked her up in her room, and gave out that 
she was ill and must be left alone. Mademoiselle was 
not long in escaping, and her vengeance was swift. The 
Comtesse found herself locked up in her cabinet, and had to 
remain there till a locksmith was fetched, as Mademoiselle, 
with keen enjoyment, had carried off the key. 

In these conflicts, however, she was not always or often 
the victor. Madame de Fiesque appealed to Monsieur, and 
he supported her authority. He sanctioned the rules of life 
and conduct that she thought it necessary to impose. They 
seemed to Mademoiselle childish and ridiculous, but she had 
to accept them and to obey. She went one evening against 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 91 

orders to visit her grandmother, the Duchesse de Guise, who 
had returned from exile in Italy. The disobedience was 
paid for by a week of imprisonment in her room, and this 
time there was no escaping. 

Madame de Fiesque particularly disliked going out in the 
evening ; her pupil, as the spring came on, had a passion for 
joining the rest of society on the Cours-de-la-Reine, a 
fashionable promenade planted with four rows of elms by 
Queen Marie de Medicis, stretching along the river-side 
beyond the Tuileries gardens. Madame de Fiesque induced 
Monsieur to command that Mademoiselle should never eo 
to the Cours without his special permission. This meant 
frequent disappointment ; for the Hotel de Guise was far off, 
and Monsieur, whose ways were uncertain, not always easy 
to find. Probably the neighbouring Hotel de Rambouillet 
was a refuge for Mademoiselle at this time. She found the 
Marquise " une chose adorable," and even Madame de 
Fiesque could not see harm in that exalted atmosphere. 

Some friendly gossip made matters worse between Made- 
moiselle and her governess by explaining Monsieur's reasons 
for the appointment. He had not an agreeable recollection 
of Madame de Fiesque as a leading member of his household 
in his first wife's time. Apparently she interfered too much ; 
possibly she told tales, and found it her duty to set Madame 
against him. Now there was little doubt that coming 
changes would bring to France Madame d'atijourd'hui, and 
etiquette would have obliged Monsieur to offer Madame de 
Fiesque the same position as before. He was therefore glad 
to rid himself of a possible critic and spy by giving her the 
honourable post of governess to his daughter. 

At this time, tormented by the new worrying discipline, 
depressed by short and sad visits to Saint-Germain, where 
Louis XHI lay dying through those spring months of 1643, 
and where the Queen was too deeply occupied with present 
and future anxieties to pay her niece much attention, Made- 
moiselle found life a dismal affair. She was glad to accept 
the affectionate homage of the Guise family, her mother's 



92 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

relations, of whom she had seen nothing since those childish 
days when she tried to ignore any blood of hers that was not 
royal. 

Madame de Guise and her family were in the highest spirits, 
once more established in Paris and free from Richelieu's 
hated power. Her three younger children were with her at 
the Hotel de Guise ; all of course much older than Mademoi- 
selle, for Madame de Guise had married again when her 
eldest daughter, the heiress of the Montpensiers, was quite a 
child. Mademoiselle de Guise — Marie de Lorraine — was a 
clever woman of eight-and-twenty. Her two younger 
brothers, Louis and Roger de Lorraine, known at this time as 
Chevaliers de Guise and de Joinville, were lively young 
fellows very ready to fall in love. They were charmed to 
help in amusing their half-niece, Mademoiselle, and she tried 
a little match-making on the elder boy's account. 

It was suggested in the first instance by a certain " assez 
libre " Madame Martel, an acquaintance of Madame de 
Guise. It sounded likely enough that the Chevalier — who 
was afterwards Due de Joyeuse, his brother Roger, then 
known as Chevalier de Guise, becoming a Knight of Malta 
— might be a suitable husband for Mademoiselle d'Epernon, 
Mademoiselle's specially loved cousin and friend, whom she 
now had the great joy of meeting again among the re- 
turned exiles. There was a little awkwardness at first. 
Mademoiselle d'Epernon's father and stepmother being 
" mal avec Monsieur " ; but Monsieur showed his good- 
nature on this occasion, and did not forbid his daughter the 
friendship which brightened the next five years of her life. 
The consequence of the match-making game was a rather 
serious flirtation between young Louis de Lorraine and 
Mademoiselle d'Epernon. He was passionately in love. 
He gave the strongest proof of devotion that a lover in 
those days could give : he visited her when she had the 
small-pox. For worldly reasons, however, his mother and 
sister finally persuaded him to give up the marriage, 
and some time later, to Mademoiselle's keen indignation, 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 93 

he married the only daughter and heiress of the Due 
d'Angouleme. 

She never forgave the unworthy treatment of her friend, 
and never spoke of the Due de Joyeuse without coldness 
and contempt, while his younger brother, a soldier who 
died unmarried, had her lifelong esteem. And it was for 
Mademoiselle d'Epernon's sake that she drew back, while 
still a young girl, from her new friendship with these 
Lorraine relations. Mademoiselle would certainly have 
affirmed that first impressions are everything. Lorraine 
intrigue, Lorraine ambition, Lorraine worldliness and cun- 
ning ; it was a bad match for the Bourbon temper, rampant 
from infancy in Mademoiselle. 

There were exceptions, however. There was a hero in 
the family, and Mademoiselle lov^ed heroes. She always 
admired her grandmother's eldest surviving son, the romantic 
paladin Henry de Lorraine, Due de Guise, a man of nine- 
and-twenty, who came to Paris at this time from Flanders, 
leaving his unlucky wife, the Comtesse de Bossu, behind 
him. 

The Due de Guise was one of the wildest and most 
picturesque figures of that wild time. A " tete folle," a mad 
hunter after pleasure and adventure of all kinds, rash, daring, 
generous, this young Lorraine had been for years a terrible 
annoyance to Cardinal de Richelieu. At fifteen, by one of 
those scandalous appointments which disgraced the Church, 
he was made Archbishop of Reims. A cavalier-ecclesiastic 
in satin and feathers and gold spurs, " petit prelat d'une 
eglise bien militante," the stories told of him were startling, 
even in that day. Among the women desperately in love 
with him were two of the Princesses de Gonzague, the 
learned Anne, afterwards Princess Palatine, and her sister 
Ben6dicte, Abbess of Avenay, whose vocation, in spite of 
Bossuet's flattering remarks, seems to have been no more 
real than that of the Abbess of Yeres, or of Henry de 
Lorraine himself. 

His ecclesiastical character only lasted till his father's death, 



94 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

when he gladly resigned the archbishopric and begged 
Richelieu to give him the command of an army. It does not 
seem that he had any disloyal intentions, but the Cardinal 
distrusted the whole House of Lorraine too deeply to give 
M. de Guise any chance of winning distinction as a general. 
The young man left France in a rage and threw in his lot 
with the Comte de Soissons and the Due de Bouillon in their 
armed conspiracy. After the Comte's death, Guise escaped 
from Sedan in disguise. He would not, as Bouillon did, 
negotiate his pardon, but remained in banishment ; and this 
probably saved him from being involved in the Cinq-Mars 
affair. But Richelieu had him condemned and beheaded in 
effigy. 

Now he flashed back once more to Paris, and all the gay 
world ran after him. " II fut a lui seul tous les Guise 
ensemble," says Paul de Musset, writing of him among the 
" extravagants " of the century. He had the daring courage 
and resoluteness of his great-grandfather Francois, shot by 
Poltrot the Huguenot ; the energy and ambition of Henry le 
Balafre, his grandfather, murdered at Blois ; the weaknesses 
and the eccentricity of Charles, his father. He had all the 
faults of his qualities, and many more besides, with an 
extraordinary charm which covered them all. He made 
a fine sensation in society, 

"Son coeur alloit voltigeant de passion en passion," says 
Madame de Motteville, writing of the Due de Guise. His 
first strong attraction in Paris seems to have been the 
notorious Madame de Montbazon ; the next, more lasting, 
was Mademoiselle de Pons ; he tried to persuade the Pope to 
annul his Flemish marriage, that he might marry her. But 
he lived on love-affairs and duels ; laws, for him, were made 
to be broken ; and being very rich and wildly generous, he 
was one of the most popular men in Paris. He was also one 
of the handsomest ; with the high nose and eagle look of the 
Due d'Enghien, his features were finer and his expression 
singularly sweet. He had so noble an air that princes and 
great men looked common beside him, and people found it 




LOUIS XIII 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 95 

easy to believe that this hero of chivahy, as they called him, 
was a descendant of Charlemagne. 

It is not likely that Mademoiselle at her Tuileries saw 
much of the young man, who was more of a trouble than 
a joy to the respectable Duchesse de Guise ; but in later 
years she was on terms of cordial friendship with " mon 
oncle " and referred to him in many of the difficulties of her 
life. 

On the 14th of May, the thirty-third anniversary of his 
father's death, the sad life and reign of Louis XIII came to 
an end. Various stories are told of the King's state of mind 
and of the quaint fancies that took him while he lay patiently 
waiting for death. He was much occupied with thoughts of 
his country, for which, it is only fair to say, he had always 
been ready to sacrifice himself He had formally directed 
that the Queen should be Regent, and Monsieur, with whom 
he had been reconciled, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom ; 
but with the old unconquerable distrust he did his best to 
cripple the one and the other by appointing a Council whose 
opinion they were bound to follow. And he specially ex- 
cepted Madame de Chevreuse from the amnesty which 
allowed all exiles to return : " C'est le diable, cela ! " 

His thoughts wandered to the frontier, where his young 
commander, the Due d'Enghien, was facing the troops of 
Spain. Eye-witnesses say that he snatched the Queen's fan, 
crying out for his pistols. 

" Do you not see," he said, " M. le Due d'Enghien fighting 
the Spaniards ? Lord, how he drives them ! He has de- 
feated them, they are all killed or taken prisoners, except a 
few runaways. Oh ! how right I was to trust him with my 
army. It was my own choice ; I had opposition enough." 

He looked solemnly at the Prince de Conde, standing by 
his bed. " Your son has gained a great victory," he said. 

Five days after his death, d'Enghien fought and conquered 
the Spanish army on the plain of Rocroy. It seemed as if 
the death-bed wanderings of Louis were a distinct prophecy. 

He gazed much, from his high window in the new Chateau 



96 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

of Saint-Germain, at the distant towers of Saint-Denis. " I 
am going there for a long stay," he said tranquilly. " But 
the road is bad ; I shall have a shaky journey." In these last 
days, too, he thought of his mother, harshly treated and 
exiled, and the remembrance troubled him. 

When the breath was out of the poor suffering body, they 
sang the De Profundis to music that Louis himself had 
composed. And then, for the few days between his death 
and stately funeral, he was left at Saint-Germain with a 
small guard. Of all the Court, only the Due de Vendome 
and one other gentleman remained in charge of their dead 
King. The Queen, the young King and his brother, Mon- 
sieur, all the princes and nobles and great ladies, with their 
troops of servants and loads of furniture and baggage, 
hurried pell-mell back to Paris, where crowds waited with 
acclamation for their new King. There was little pretence 
of mourning or regret. The enthusiasm was tremendous : 
" Ce n'etaient partout qu'applaudissemens et benedictions." 

After the Royalties were installed at the Louvre, a few 
Parisians remembered Louis XIII, le Juste, and went out to 
Saint-Germain, " par curiosite plutot que par tendresse," to 
look upon him for the last time. 

Mademoiselle, his niece, constant of heart and grateful for 
his unfailing kindness, was one of the very few who sincerely 
regretted Louis XIII. 



CHAPTER VIII 

1643 

" J'ai vu le temps de la bonne regence, 
Temps ou regnait una heureuse abondance, 
Temps oil la Ville aussi bien que la Cour 
Ne respirait que les Jeux et 1' Amour." 

LA BONNE REGENCE— THE SUPERIOR OF THE CARMELITES— THE 
DUC DE BEAUFORT AND THE IMPORTANTS — THE ARRIVAL OF 
MADAME — THE PRINCESSE DE CONDE AND MADAME DE MONTBAZON 
—A COLD COLLATION— MAZARIN'S TRIUMPH 

" TA Reine est si bonne !" 

J y These words were in everybody's mouth at the 

beginning of Anne of Austria's regency. She was borne on 
a wave of popularity into power much more supreme than 
the dying King had intended. 

On Monday, the i8th of May, several days before the 
funeral ceremony, she went in state to present young 
Louis XIV to the Parliament, and on that occasion her 
husband's commands were set aside in great measure, and 
she was given full sovereign authority without any of the 
limits he had imposed. If she wished for advice from her 
Council, of which the Due d'Orleans was President and the 
Prince'de Conde Vice-President, she could ask for it; but 
she was in no way obliged to take it. 

The little five-year-old King, with his blue eyes and fair 
curls, dressed in violet velvet, standing up on the throne ; 
his widowed mother, still beautiful and always stately, 
wrapped in crape ; these two, the centre of a great crowd 
of all that was noblest, cleverest, worthiest, in the old palace 
of France, seemed to draw to themselves the adoring con- 
fidence of the nation. New hope and life were in the air. 
H 97 



98 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Every one present at that famous seance was enchanted, 
except a few independent spirits like President Barillon, or 
clear-sighted men such as Olivier d'Ormesson, himself a red- 
robed member. " Either I am mistaken or they are mis- 
taken," he says in his Journal. He was ready to believe in 
the Queen's good intentions ; but he realised the difficulties 
in her way. 

Few of course in that great assembly would have made 
Anne absolute ruler of France for her beaux yeux alone. 
Each party had its own objects to serve, and each flattered 
itself that it would influence the Queen in its own way. 
Among the princes and great nobles, torn by furious 
jealousies between themselves, each clique wished her to be 
independent of its rival as well as of the Parliament. The 
Parliament had no liking for "les grands," and looked for- 
ward, their power being checked, to recovering the authority 
and dignity of which Richelieu had done much to deprive it. 
As to the people of France, the unrepresented millions who 
only worked and paid taxes, their opinion was not asked. 
But with them royalty was popular ; they threw up their 
caps in joyful hope of peace, lighter burdens, and more food. 
" La Reine est si bonne ! " Paris shouted. " Vive la Regente ! 
Vive notre petit Roi ! " and the cries rolled away echoing 
through the provinces. 

Nobody had any idea at all that in giving the supreme 
sovereign power into the hands of Anne of Austria they 
were giving it into those of Cardinal Giulio Mazarini. The 
Italian had kept discreetly in the background during the 
last weeks of the late King's life, but his influence with the 
Queen was already greater than any one knew, and on 
the very evening of May i8th, on her return to the Louvre, 
she announced her decision : Mazarin was her First Minister. 

The Parliament was furious ; it already knew something 
of Mazarin and his views on government. The Court, at 
first, was on the whole indifferent, though the Vendome 
clique, just now predominant, had set its hopes on the royal 
chaplain, the Bishop of Beauvais — marked for all time by 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 99 

the brilliant impudence of Retz as " plus idiot que tous les 
idiots de votre connoissance." The princes and nobles 
despised the low-born statesman : Richelieu was at least one 
of themselves, and a great Frenchman, an enemy worthy of 
drawn swords and risky conspiracies. At first, too, Mazarin 
with his handsome face and soft manners tried to please 
them. " Doux et benin," as Retz describes him, he seemed 
at home to be merely an instrument of the Queen's open- 
handed generosity, while abroad he carried on the high 
traditions of Richelieu, encouraging the armies, even if 
taking to himself some of the credit of the Due d'Enghien's 
victories. 

The fact is that during the first weeks of la bonne 
Regence, society was too passionately bent on personal 
amusement and personal gain to think about politics at all. 
The new Minister might govern and tax as he pleased, so 
long as he did not interfere with their pleasures or the 
Queen's liberality. Everybody asked for everything, and 
everybody got what he asked for. Places, pensions, abbeys, 
bishoprics, governorships, military commands, orders, dis- 
tinctions, tabourets, precedences, privileges ; but above all 
things and on every excuse, money ; money from the 
treasury, money out of the taxes, which these people did 
not help to pay, and under the load of which France had 
groaned ever since the coming of Richelieu, absolutism, and 
foreign glory. La bonne Regence was not likely to bring peace, 
with Mazarin at the helm ; nor plenty, with a magnificent but 
famished pack of men and women, most of them rushing 
home from exile, clutching and tearing and fighting for every 
good thing the Court had to bestow. For them, and them 
alone, the Regency was good and the Queen was kind. She 
gave with both hands, and the wild crowd took it all, seizing 
in addition an extraordinary liberty to do as they pleased. 

For many years society had not been so splendid, so gay. 
The Court being once more established at the Louvre, and 
making very light, it seems, of the formal season of mourning, 
all the grand old hotels were filled up again, and Paris, high 

L OF C. 



loo A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and low, amused itself as Paris only knows how. The merry 
summer months were never merrier. Mademoiselle looked 
out from her Tuileries on bright gardens in sunshine, and 
listened at night, one may be sure, to fashionable moonlight 
serenades. Once or twice a day she visited the Louvre, to 
pay her respects to the Queen and to play with the two 
charming little boys there. Philippe was the prettiest and 
the most attractive, though Mademoiselle's affection for 
Louis was constant and loyal. Louis had always something 
of his mother's Spanish stateliness and a talent for guarding 
himself from too much familiarity. One can quite imagine 
that the attentions of a big, frank, noisy, rather awkward 
and excitable cousin of sixteen might sometimes annoy a 
dignified King of five. 

With girlish enthusiasm, Mademoiselle shared in the new 
devotion to Anne of Austria. Though she had loved her 
uncle, she knew that his wife had deserved pity for years of 
neglect and unkindness, and it was not till later, hurt by the 
Queen's coldness, and seeing and hearing many things with 
grown-up eyes and ears, that she began to perceive right and 
reason in Louis XI IPs attempt to restrict the power of the 
Regency. In the meanwhile, in spite of Anne's indifference, 
she followed her everywhere like a faithful dog. No inter- 
ference here from Madame de Fiesque. 

The Queen was always divote ; according to her faithful 
Madame de Motteville, she was really religious. Now that she 
was a widow, she made it her duty to visit all the churches 
in Paris on their fete-days. On Saturdays she regularly 
attended high mass at Notre Dame. Making full use of her 
new liberty, she constantly visited her favourite convents, 
especially the Abbey of the Val-de-Grace and the great 
Carmelite Convent in the Rue St. Jacques. 

Of all the " religious " who inhabited the many convents of 
Paris, with their immense influence on different sections of 
society, the Superior of the Carmelites held the most dis- 
tinguished place. Several remarkable women succeeded 
each other in this post during the first half of the seven- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS loi 

teenth century. They were women who knew Court life by 
experience and had left the world of their own free will, 
becoming the teachers, the friends, the counsellors, of society. 
The)'- inherited the practical good sense, as well as the 
devotion, of St. Theresa and Madame Acarie. Fashionable 
sins and difficulties had nothing surprising for them. Their 
views of life and duty differed to some extent from those of 
the famous Port Royal. They treated human nature more 
gently, and made repentance less hard ; thus their influence 
was wider, if not so stirring and so deep. 

It was easier, too, for queens and princesses and great 
ladies of the old world to confide in a woman who knew 
them by instinct, than in the strong and stern Mere An- 
gelique Arnauld, whose orthodoxy was suspected at Court, 
who made small excuse for sinners and showed them little 
tenderness. She had, indeed, friends among the great, and 
for some years her influence went on growing ; but not even 
the efforts of the Bishop of Langres, when he moved her to 
a house near the Louvre, arranged the hours of services to 
suit the Court, and clothed her and her nuns in fine white 
serge and linen with scarlet crosses, were successful in attract- 
ing the fashionable world as a whole. It was many years 
later than this that Mademoiselle visited and appreciated 
Port Royal. 

But the great Carmelite Convent was school and home and 
refuge and comfort to society at large, and to royalty in 
particular. The venerable Mere Madeleine de St. Joseph, 
many times Prioress, was the intimate friend and adviser of 
Queen Marie de Medicis and all her children. After her 
death in 1637, one of those highest in the Order was Marie 
de Lancry (Mademoiselle de Bains), in religion Mere Marie- 
Madeleine de Jesus, who was also elected Prioress for several 
years in succession. She, probably, was in authority when 
Queen Anne visited the Convent in the earlier months of 
the Regency. 

At this time she was about forty-five. As a most lovely 
young girl, her mother had removed her from school at the 



I02 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Ursuline Convent to place her at Court, under the care of 
Marie de Medicis. The Queen was very fond of Made- 
moiselle de Bains, and appointed her Maid of Honour. 
Everything was made easy for her, and her brightness and 
sweetness were as remarkable as her beauty. Lovers 
abounded ; half the Court with its fierce passions, great 
soldiers such as the Marechal de Saint-Luc, great nobles like 
the Due de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry of France and high 
in favour with three kings, were at her feet and begged for 
her in marriage. Her husband would have been a lucky 
man, for she had a strong mind and a tender, generous 
heart. Happily for her, perhaps, and thanks to the Queen's 
protection, she was not forced to accept anybody, but was 
allowed to follow her own instinct, to escape from a world 
that had shown her its most worldly side, and to become a 
novice at the Carmelite Convent. 

Even here at first, however, she was hardly safe. The 
Convent was besieged by her admirers, "seigneurs du premier 
rang," and the Mother Prioress, far from shutting her up, 
this beautiful girl of twenty, insisted on her seeing and 
listening to them all. But none of these gorgeous gentle- 
men was able to change the novice's firm mind. Neither was 
she shaken by her mother's entreaties and prayers. This 
was not the fine establishment poor Madame de Bains had 
planned for her daughter. 

Away in the depths of France, in the salon of one of 
those houses where old tradition lingers and tourists cannot 
yet penetrate, hangs a portrait of Mademoiselle de Bains in 
her habit as a Carmelite. The dark blue eyes smile from a 
delicate oval face ; the brow is wide and noble, the nose 
straight, the mouth small. Her hands, with their long 
pointed fingers, are crossed conventionally. In spite of a 
certain stiffness, the unknown artist's fault, it is not hard 
to believe that she was beautiful. There is even a little 
humour in the calm face ; one may guess that this nun knew 
the world before she left it. 

The Order, so much connected with the Court, might 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 103 

have been expected to fail in moral courage where royal 
weaknesses were concerned. But it was not so at all. 
When the Queen-Regent's friends began to be aware that 
Cardinal Mazarin's influence was even more personal than 
political, the Prioress of the Carmelites was among the first 
fearlessly to warn Anne against the danger of such an 
infatuation. Mazarin's angry anxiety — for he dared not 
yet despise his enemies — shows itself in his Italian note- 
books. 

" The Superior of the Carmelites spoke against me. Her 
Majesty wept, and said that if such things were spoken of 
again, she would go there no more." 

The Carmelites were not alone. In all the Queen's 
favourite convents the same voice was heard, and she, still 
so closely attached to the parti des devots, began to resent 
all this bold interference and to listen more and more will- 
ingly to her clever and attractive Minister. 

She was in a difficult position. Among the princes and 
nobles there was no real statesman, hardly an honest man. 
Orleans was popular, idle, and weak ; Conde unpopular, 
greedy, and mean ; Vendome was worthless. The strongest 
man, apparently, and the Queen's favourite among them all, 
was the young Due de Beaufort, his second son. To his 
care she had given her two children when she was attend- 
ing on her husband's death-bed ; and in consequence of 
this and other favours he gave himself the airs of the first 
Prince of the blood. Throughout that summer, as Mazarin's 
power advanced, young Beaufort became by quick degrees 
the moving spirit of the opposition. He was handsome, out- 
spoken, open-handed, and popular with the Parisians. His 
devotion to the Queen changed easily into jealous anger, 
and after a few weeks the plot of the Importants would have 
deprived her and relieved France of Mazarin, if he had not 
been too clever for all his noble enemies. 

La bonne Regence was not an easy time for the Queen- 
Regent. She must very soon have realised that she could 
not reign without the support of a strong Minister. At once 



I04 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

imperious and indolent, sensitive and easily moved to anger, 
she had an obstinacy and a political sense which would have 
assured the victory of her mind over her heart even if this 
too had not been concerned. The old friends, those who set 
themselves against the new influence, whether they were 
entirely good and loyal, like Madame de Hautefort — so 
called since her regular appointment as lady-in-waiting — or 
intriguing and dangerous like Madame de Chevreuse, newly 
returned from exile against the late King's wish — each and 
all were driven in time, though not immediately, from the 
Court. Madame de Hautefort knew the Queen better than 
she knew herself, and hated Mazarin, not for political reasons, 
but because she loved the Queen. Madame de Chevreuse, 
once so necessary to her royal friend, came back to find 
Anne changed towards her. She was received graciously, 
but not on the old terms. 

The Duchess had not been in Paris a week before her 
strong influence was thrown secretly on the side of the 
Importants. Not entirely from resentment on her own 
account ; this would not have been like Madame de Chev- 
reuse ; but because she found herself powerless as to her 
chief object, the promotion of her friends, especially the 
Prince de Marcillac and the Marquis de Chateauneuf, 
formerly Keeper of the Seals, but exiled by Richelieu. 

All the Court gossip from day to day amused Mademoiselle 
in the intervals of attending the Queen in her visits to 
churches and convents, and in the evening strolls she 
allowed herself round the Jardin de Renard, beyond the 
gardens of the Tuileries. 

Conspiracies were still working underground, and the young 
Princess knew nothing about possible explosions in society. 
She had not even begun to hate Mazarin, and this summer 
appeared to her the most charming she had ever spent. She 
was quite unaware of offending any one by friendly visits to 
Elisabeth de Vendome, the Due de Beaufort's sister, who was 
married that summer to Charles-Amedee, Due de Nemours. 
Mademoiselle de Vendome was a person of much charm, if 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 105 

we are to believe Retz, who was rather seriously in love with 
her. She was not a great beauty, he says, but like Mademoi- 
selle de Guise she was " a beauty of quality." She had the 
air of a princess. She was not clever, grave, and indolent, 
" avec un petit grain de hauteur. Enfin elle etait aimable a 
tout prendre et en tous sens." 

Retz, as a young Abb6, saw a good deal of the Vendome 
family. Madame de Vendome was very fond of him, and 
believed, on the authority of the Bishop of Lisieux, that he 
was to be a great light of the Church. The party of the 
devots made much of him, as if they foresaw that he would 
be a thorn in the side of Mazarin ; and it was in the course 
of this year that they persuaded the Queen to have him 
appointed coadjutor to his unworthy uncle Jean-Frangois de 
Gondi, Archbishop of Paris. 

Mademoiselle's pleasant visits to the young Duchesse de 
Nemours, whose married life was to end so tragically a few 
years later, were cut short by the interference of Monsieur's 
favourite, the Abbe de la Riviere. Mademoiselle detested 
him as a mischief-maker, whose business in life was to make 
quarrels between her father and herself. This was one of the 
earliest of them. Monsieur found it politic, at this time, to 
keep himself on good terms with the rising Minister. At 
least, La Riviere, bribed by Mazarin, meant him to do so. 
The growls of discontent and conspiracy were not too far 
below the surface to be heard by watchful ears. Mazarin 
himself was not the only person to be aware that his power, 
if not his life, was in danger. The name of Vendome was a 
party signal, and Mademoiselle was forbidden any further 
intimacy with M. de Beaufort's sister. She was very angry, 
but her father's authority could not be questioned. 

One of the earliest excitements of this summer was the 
arrival in Paris of the Duchesse d'Orleans. The King on 
his death-bed having forgiven his brother and consented to 
the marriage, Madame Marguerite started at once for France ; 
happy, after these years of delay, to rejoin the only man she 
had ever loved. On the frontier she met with a new offence 



io6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

in the cruel condition Louis had made. Before she could be 
received at Court, she and Gaston were solemnly to confirm 
their marriage — already twice celebrated — in the presence of 
the Archbishop of Paris. It was a trial to a proud woman 
who had gone through so much for her husband's sake. She 
almost turned back in her journey, saying there could be no 
such complaisance where honour was concerned. When she 
yielded, it was with " une repugnance incroyable." 

The first person to meet her on French soil was Mademoi- 
selle, her stepdaughter, who had real sympathy for her at 
this time. Monsieur met her at Meudon, coldly enough, 
considering their long constancy, and that very evening they 
made the required declaration before M. de Paris in pontifical 
habit, with mitre and crosier, in the chapel of the Chateau 
de Meudon. Madame and Mademoiselle de Guise were 
present with Mademoiselle and a few others at this rather 
dismal scene. The Duchess wept tears of rage and mortifica- 
tion. 

She had no longer, says Mademoiselle, the great beauty 
which once charmed Monsieur, and the style of her dress 
did not repair the ravages made by years of sorrow. She 
knew nobody, and French Court life was strange to her. 
Mademoiselle did all she could to help her, and was at first 
high in her good graces. Monsieur, as far as his nature 
allowed, became a model husband. But at Court and in 
society Madame was a failure. She was proud and un- 
sociable, though she danced beautifully. Anne of Austria 
consistently thought her odious. The polite gossips called 
her " une pauvre idiote " : a slander, for she had plenty of 
intelligence. No one without some wit and character could 
have ruled Gaston, as she did, for the rest of his life ; and 
this in spite of bad health and numberless annoyances. 

Monsieur and Madame set up their little Court at the 
Luxembourg, which he inherited from his mother, but Made- 
moiselle kept her apartments in the Tuileries under the eye 
of the Queen. It was with the Queen, and as the first 
Princess of the blood royal, that she went to all entertain- 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 107 

ments possible in that summer of mourning. She was thus 
thrown a good deal with the family of Conde, whom she 
disliked ; and it seems that they — Madame la Princesse and 
Madame de Longueville, as well as the Due d'Enghien for 
his neglected wife — resented the tomboy's precedence with 
loud complaints. At this time, and afterwards, there were 
public scenes and quarrels on the subject. 

But deeper excitements were abroad. The political 
volcano went on throwing up spurts of fire through society. 
Already the spirit of the Fronde was alive in Madame de 
Chevreuse and her party. The Importants did not confine 
themselves to secret, serious plotting, but began openly to in- 
sult those who did not oppose the Cardinal. 

The Princesse de Conde was one of the Queen's most 
intimate friends, and one who did not, for her part, think it 
necessary to remonstrate in the matter of Mazarin. He, so 
far, had shown himself friendly to the Due d'Enghien, and 
had done his best to secure the support of the Prince de 
Conde, who was too prudent to oppose him openly. That 
family, therefore, was high in favour with Anne, and the 
society of Madame la Princesse became much more agreeable 
to her than that of more candid friends. 

The well-known personal quarrel between the Conde and 
Chevreuse factions meant more than lay on the surface, 
which only showed a rival beauty's hatred and jealousy of 
Madame de Longueville. The Due de Longueville, before 
his second marriage, had been one of Madame de Mont- 
bazon's many slaves. It was a condition of the marriage 
that this liaison should cease. 

The Duchesse de Montbazon, though younger than 
Madame de Chevreuse, was her stepmother. She had been 
married about fifteen years to the old Duke, and by this 
time was known as the worst woman in France. Many im- 
possible stories are told of her. Retz, who in spite of his 
own character knew how to admire goodness, said of her, 
" Je n'ai jamais vu une personne qui ait conserve dans le vice 
si peu de respect pour la vertu." She was magnificently 



io8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

handsome in a colossal style, with the blackest eyes and hair 
and a dazzlingly white skin. Decked out with pearls and 
red feathers, she was a sight to startle society. Her speech 
was more than free, her manners were haughty and disagree- 
able. She was vain, greedy, and cunning, yet with a certain 
stupidity, which showed itself in her management of this 
affair. Most of the men of the day, from the Due 
d'Orleans to the Abbe de Ranc6, were or had been in love 
with her, for no woman, when she willed it, could be more 
attractive. 

One day, two unsigned love-letters, in a woman's hand, 
were picked up in Madame de Montbazon's salon. She pre- 
tended to believe that they had been written by Madame de 
Longueville to Maurice de Coligny, great-grandson of the 
Admiral, who had dropped them in leaving the house. 
Coligny was known to be devoted to Madame de Longueville, 
his cousin, but no scandal had yet touched her young name. 
Madame de Montbazon made the most of her discovery, and 
the story lost nothing as it ran round society. 

Madame la Princesse was in a tremendous rage. She was 
more angry than her daughter, who treated the affair with 
languid contempt. She declared that the honour of her 
House had been outraged by this insult ; and that House, 
with its heir winning splendid victories on the frontier, was 
becoming a national glory. She insisted on immediate 
apology. The Queen must command it. It was past bear- 
ing that her daughter should be less considered than the 
granddaughter of a cook, she said, alluding to Madame de 
Montbazon's maternal grandfather, La Varenne, who had 
been maitre-d hotel to Henry IV. She threatened to retire 
from the Court if justice was not done without delay. 

On the other side, the whole party of the Importants, led 
by Madame de Chevreuse, the Due de Beaufort, and the 
Due de Guise, supported Madame de Montbazon in her 
refusal to apologise. But Mazarin, who had no wish to 
quarrel with the Condes, so represented matters to the 
Queen that she promised her protection to Madame de 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 109 

iLongueville. The furious Duchess was obliged to submit, 
land even her own friends failed her a little when the real 
story of the letters came to their knowledge. They were 
written by Madame de Fouquerolles to the Marquis de 
Maulevrier. 

Mademoiselle was present at the Hotel de Conde, with 
Monsieur and "une excessive quantite de monde," when 
Madame de Montbazon arrived to make her forced amends. 
Though Mademoiselle liked none of the family, she felt it 
due to her own position, as princess and cousin, to stand by 
them now. And she was quite as well amused as any of 
the smart crowd there. She looked on while " Madame de 
Montbazon, much dressed, entered the room with a very 
proud air. Having drawn near to Madame la Princesse, 
she read from a paper tied to her fan the excuses which had 
been prescribed to her." 

The apology was cleverly drawn up: it was the joint 
work of Madame de Chevreuse and Mazarin. It confessed 
nothing and asked no pardon ; simply stating that the lady 
was innocent of any slander or calumny, and would never 
fail in respect for the Princess or in esteem for the 
virtue and merit of Madame de Longueville. It was read 
with amazingly bad grace, according to Mademoiselle, and 
she had nothing better to say of the Princess's reception of 
it. Her manner was majestic, as usual, but extremely short 
and cold. In deference to the Queen's command, she said, 
she received Madame de Montbazon's assurance that the 
publishing of this m^chancete was no doing of hers. After 
which the Duchess left the Hotel de Conde with what dignity 
she might, and she and her whole party determined on a 
swift revenge. 

She had a foretaste of this in a lucky opportunity of 
annoying the Queen, One evening in August, a few days 
after the affair of the letters, Mademoiselle arranged a 
picnic with Madame de Chevreuse and others under the 
cool trees of the Jardin de Renard. She invited the Queen 
and Madame la Princesse. The open-air supper was ready. 



no A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

when Mamade de Montbazon, unexpected, marched in upon 
the company. Madame la Princesse would not sit down 
with her. Madame de Montbazon refused to go. Two or 
three mortal hours, Mademoiselle declares, were spent in 
argument, while the hungry guests waited impatiently. At 
last the Queen, Mademoiselle, and all her party walked 
away without any supper. Madame de Montbazon's in- 
solence was such that she remained, and ate up the collation 
prepared for the Queen. One fears it must have been a 
cold collation and a little the worse for the delay. 

It proved, however, to be the last supper Madame de 
Montbazon was to eat in Paris for a long time. Queen 
Anne was not the woman to take such conduct patiently, 
and a royal order, the very next day, exiled the Duchess to 
one of her country houses. 

All this embittered the cabal of the Importanfs, and 
Mazarin, who like his great forerunner was well served by 
spies, found himself in danger of his life. His movements 
were watched by a band of young men whose object was to 
be rid of the new tyranny of this new Cardinal for once and 
for all. Behind them were the women, still more dangerous, 
who inspired them ; Madame de Chevreuse was not afraid of 
a crime or of its consequences. 

Mazarin waited till September, and then struck hard. 
The Due de Beaufort was arrested, and imprisoned at Vin- 
cennes. His father and the rest of his family retired to the 
Chateau d'Anet, and afterwards fled to Italy. The other 
conspirators escaped in various directions. Madame de 
Chevreuse, bitterly disappointed, was exiled once more to 
Touraine, where she and her friends continued those plots 
which never ceased till the outbreak of civil war. 

Meanwhile, society danced through gay months to the 
music of its violins. The young Princess at the Tuileries, 
grown very tall and very handsome, had her own string 
band and gave balls where everybody flirted but herself. 

There were also duels, in defiance of Richelieu's law and 
the Queen -Regent's anger. The Due de Guise fought 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS iii 

Maurice de Coligny in the Place Royale, Madame de 
Longueville, fair and indifferent, looking on from behind a 
curtain. Coligny was beaten and disarmed, so that he never 
recovered the disgrace. This led to a desperate quarrel 
between the Houses of Orleans and Guise and the House of 
Conde. It was all fresh diversion for Paris, slipping merrily 
on from la bonne Regence into the years that led up to the 
Fronde. 



CHAPTER IX 

I 644- I 648 

"la Princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest . . , 

All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace 
Self to right hand, self to left hand, self in every place, 
Self-same solitary figure, self-same seeking face. 

Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon. . . . 
There I sit uplift and upright, there I sit alone." 

HENRIETTA OF ENGLAND — THE PRINCE OF WALES— A BALL AT 
THE PALAIS ROYAL — MADEMOISELLE'S VOCATION — THE SAUJON 
AFFAIR— THE EVE OF THE FRONDE 

MADEMOISELLE'S youngest aunt, the unhappy- 
Queen Henrietta of England, arrived in France in 
the late summer of 1644. Ill from hardship and anxiety, 
she stayed two months at Bourbon for the sake of the 
waters. Having gone through this cure, she travelled to 
Paris. Her brother Gaston had already joined her, and 
Mademoiselle met her at Bourg-la-Reine, being sent in state 
in one of the royal coaches. They dined and slept at Mont- 
rouge, and the next day, the 5th of November, the Queen 
made her entry into Paris, 

All the Court, driving and riding, met her with great 
ceremony outside the Faubourg St. Jacques. The little 
King placed her on his right hand in his coach, the Queen 
Regent being opposite, and two Princes, Monsieur and the 
Due d'Enghien, the hero of many victories, at thQ portieres. 
The other Royalties followed in their splendid coaches, and 
the procession was escorted by guards, musketeers, men-at- 
arms, and a crowd of young nobles on horseback, all dressed 
in different colours and gorgeous with gold and silver lace. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 113 

The Due de Guise and his brothers were among the most 
brilliant of the company. The absence of the First Minister 
was noticed by some among the enthusiastic crowd who 
thronged the streets. Perhaps the end of the English 
struggles was already clear to Mazarin's diplomatic eye. 

But Henrietta did not give him a thought, probably. Her 
heart must have been warmed by this welcome from Paris, 
her father's great town, to Henry's youngest child. The 
memory of Paris might be short and its fancy capricious, 
but it did not forget Henry. Many in this crowd remem- 
bered his tragic death-day, while she was still in her cradle. 
They remembered very well too the departure for England 
of the pretty and sparkling Princess of sixteen. Of her life 
since then they knew little, or of rights and wrongs, politics 
and wars, in King Charles's foggy and muddy and heretic 
island. Their own Parliament had not begun fighting for 
its privileges, though the signs of the times, to prudent men, 
were already ominous. Paris saw what England had done 
for Henriette-Marie, and loved England none the better, as 
it cheered her through the streets to her refuge in the old 
palace where she was born. 

Every one pitied this poor Queen, says Mademoiselle, for 
her state was deplorable in spite of the Baths of Bourbon. 
She was an old woman at thirty-five, thin and brown, with 
hardly a trace of beauty left. Madame de Motteville, with 
a more flattering touch, adds a remark on Henrietta's fine 
eyes and well-shaped nose. There never was much to be 
said for her mouth ; " not beautiful by nature, the thinness 
of her face made it look large." But Queen Anne's lady 
finds many pleasanter things to say about Henrietta. She 
describes her as brilliant, agreeable, easy and pleasant in 
society ; so gay by nature that she could laugh and joke 
in the midst of tears, generous and liberal in spite of her 
present distress. In short, a Frenchwoman of the best kind, 
who had been compelled, for her misfortune, to live among 
an alien people. 

The Queen of England was established with her house- 
I 



114 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

hold at the Louvre, where she received the honours due to a 
Queen and a daughter of France, including a large pension 
from the King. Some months before, the French Court 
had removed to the Palais Royal, which Anne found more 
convenient than the Louvre. Thus Mademoiselle had her 
aunt for a near neighbour, and visited her assiduously. 

It seems at first glance natural and touching that Henri- 
etta should have entertained her young niece with stories 
of that England where she had certainly left her heart, un- 
kindly as it treated her. The sweetness of life in the green 
island, where the sun shone sometimes, after all ; the beauty 
and richness of the country, the goodness of the people ; and 
last, not least, the charming qualities of her eldest son. 

" I wish you could see him,*' said Henrietta ; and Made- 
moiselle had no difficulty in guessing the thought behind 
the wish. 

This explained all the raptures, a little exaggerated, about 
the horrid country which had treated one French princess 
so ill. Mademoiselle, small blame to her, realised the situa- 
tion keenly, and was little inclined, from the first, to sacrifice 
herself and her great fortune for the good of the unlucky 
House of Stuart. 

She played with the idea, however. " If the Prince of 
Wales had been a modern Cid," says Madame Arvede 
Barine, " la Grande Mademoiselle — her whole life proves it 
— would joyfully have flung away prudence. She would 
have married him and gone off with him ' to conquer their 
kingdom.' " But Charles was not a hero of Corneille, and 
had no power to stir his cousin's imagination. 

He came to France in the summer of 1646, and Mademoi- 
selle saw him first in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where the 
Court was then staying. His mother presented him formally 
to the King and Queen, Mademoiselle and Madame la 
Princesse. He was a swarthy lad of sixteen, tall for his 
age, and passably good-looking. It was unfortunate that he 
could not speak or understand a word of French. This 
defect made him silent and awkward, and the good-natured 




MADEMOISELLli DE MONTPEiNSIER 

FROM A MINIAIUUE BV PETI I'OT 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 115 

Court, doing all it could to welcome and amuse the exiled 
boy, found him dull company. Queen Henrietta watched 
with painful interest the impression he made on Mademoi- 
selle. She assured her niece that Charles was already in 
love with her ; that he talked of her without ceasing, and 
could hardly be restrained from following her about all day. 
Mademoiselle listened with more politeness than faith. 

The winter in Paris was very gay, and the Prince of Wales 
was everywhere in attendance on his cousin. He certainly 
did his best, at an awkward age, to please his mother and to 
forward his own fortunes. On the whole, Mademoiselle was 
not displeased with him. 

" When I went to see the Queen of England," she writes, 
" he always led me to the coach, and whatever the weather 
might be, he kept his hat off as long as I was present ; he 
showed me civility even in the least things." 

She specially remembered one evening when she was going 
to a ball given in her honour by Madame de Choisy, whose 
husband was her father's Chancellor. She was really treated, 
that night, as the future Queen of England. Henrietta 
Maria came from the Louvre to the Tuileries on purpose to 
superintend her dress and the arranging of her beautiful 
hair : she was an authority on these matters. Prince Charles 
held the light, while his mother dressed her niece " with all 
imaginable care." His petite oie, which meant hat and 
feathers, stockings, gloves, sword-knot, and other ribbons, 
was of Mademoiselle's colours, scarlet, white, and black. 

Mademoiselle drove first to the Palais Royal, an invariable 
rule, to show herself to the Queen. At Madame de Choisy's 
door she found the Prince waiting to hand her from the 
coach. While she lingered, before going into the ballroom, 
for a finishing touch to her hair, he was again there to hold 
the light. By some sort of miracle, as it appeared to her, 
he understood that evening everything she said to him. 
Charles had a good deal of mother-wit, though not fully 
developed till later. 

It was another pleasant surprise, that night, to find him 



ii6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

at her own door when she returned. Such " open gallantry " 
was much talked of, and at this time, certainly. Mademoiselle 
liked the English boy well enough. But she never had any 
serious intention of committing herself as to the future. 

There are reasons for regretting this. If Mademoiselle, 
instead of remaining an eccentric old maid among princesses, 
had married Charles II, she would have escaped a great deal 
of the rather unjust ridicule which has hung about her name 
from her own day to this. Her best qualities, too, would 
have made her a more popular Queen of England than 
Henrietta Maria, and would have given her more influence 
with her husband than the Portuguese Catherine ever had. 
Neither King nor people could have ignored Anne-Marie- 
Louise d'Orleans. 

Some characteristics which the French smiled at would 
have attracted the English, and suggest, in fact, those of 
many a well-born Englishwoman, Mademoiselle's " single- 
mindedness and simple, plain-spoken directness, her love of 
animals and field-sports and country life, her faithfulness to 
her friends, kindness to her dependents, interest in the 
common people, all united with a serene conviction of her 
own superiority, and a passion for dignity and state ; a 
character above smallness and very impatient of it, yet 
narrow in view and eagerly interested in gossip " ; none of 
this can be called un-English. Moral and loyally religious, 
yet never bigoted ; a little like Queen Elizabeth, both in her 
childish vanity and her passionate patriotism : the history of 
England might have been altered, if Mademoiselle, with 
whom marriage was chiefly a political matter, had not seen 
an imperial crown hovering within her reach. 

She has left us a picture of the occasion on which she 
began to feel a distinct scorn for her unlucky boy-lover. 
Rumours had reached her that the Emperor Ferdinand III, 
whose wife had lately died, was looking to the Queen- 
Regent for consolation ; also that the whole of Austria 
wished him to marry the young Duchesse de Montpensier. 
These reports seem to have been equally nonsensical with 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 117 

that which gave her to Philip IV of Spain, the husband of 
her aunt Christine, who died in 1644. But the French Court 
talked about them, the Abbe de la Riviere made use of 
them to flatter Mademoiselle, and she, always gobe-mouche 
on her romantic and ambitious side, did not disbelieve them. 
They confirmed her strong feeling that she was destined 
for one of the three highest thrones in Europe — Austria, 
France, or Spain. She had already refused the crown of 
Poland, and she affected to despise Princess Marie de 
Gonzague, of the Cond^ faction, who had accepted it. 
England with its dying royalty seemed hardly worth a 
thought now. 

One of the chief gaieties of the winter of 1646 was an 
Italian play at the Palais Royal, followed by a beautiful 
ball. Mademoiselle, at nineteen, in the height of good looks 
and good spirits, cut a splendid figure on this occasion. 
They began to dress her, she says, three days before. 

" My gown was a mass of diamonds, with tufts of scarlet, 
white, and black ; I wore all the crown jewels, as well as 
those that remained to the Queen of England. No one 
could be better or more magnificently dressed than I was 
that day, and I found plenty of people who knew how to 
tell me assez a propos that my fine figure and air, my white 
skin, and the glory of my fair hair adorned me no less than 
the priceless gems that glittered on my person." 

The witness of Madame de Motteville, always trustworthy, 
bears out Mademoiselle's fine description. She dwells 
specially on the wonderful bouquet Mademoiselle wore on 
her head, in which great diamonds and great pearls were 
scattered among the flowers, an enchanting union of the 
beauty and the riches of nature. Out of this bouquet sprang 
three long feathers, scarlet, white, and black, which drooped 
upon her neck. Madame de Motteville, contrary to the 
usual view, observes that a beautiful woman thus adorned 
looks more beautiful still. But it might be true of Mademoi- 
selle, who possessed rather " the air of great beauty " than 
the real, supreme thing. 



ii8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

The ball was held in the large saloon built by Cardinal de 
Richelieu as a theatre. At the end of this saloon there was 
a throne raised on three steps, with a canopy, meant for 
royal spectactors of play or bail Neither little King Louis 
nor his cousin Prince Charles would sit on this throne. 
Mademoiselle therefore reigned from it alone, with the two 
royal boys at her feet. She enjoyed the position amazingly, 
and her flatterers had plenty to say about it. She had never, 
they assured her, appeared more entirely in her right place, 
and this temporary throne could only foreshadow one more 
permanent. 

" While I sat there," she says, " with the Prince at my feet, 
my heart, as well as my eyes, regarded him de haut en bas. 
My intention was to marry the Emperor, which seemed at 
that time likely enough." 

Charles pleased her no better when he returned to France 
a few years later as King of England. The young man had 
no more to say than the boy " point de douceurs," though 
his cousin gave him every opportunity. She also found him 
stupid about his own affairs : in 1649, it would have been 
more strange if his prospects had seemed to Charles worth 
chattering about. She was finally repelled by the bad taste 
he showed when dining with the Queen-Regent. He refused 
ortolans, and " flung himself on an enormous piece of beef 
and a shoulder of mutton, as if there was nothing else." 

Thus " our mutton-eating King " missed his chance of the 
great Montpensier fortune. 

The impetuous, ill-balanced character of the girl, with her 
rather anomalous position between the Queen-Regent's and 
Monsieur's authority, and her obstinate fancy for an imperial 
marriage, dragged her into several scrapes at this time. She 
was beginning the wildest and most restless period of her life, 
and she began it by proposing to become a Carmelite. Surely 
never was vocation so imaginary as that of Mademoiselle. 

She had heard that Ferdinand III was very devout, and it 
appeared to her that his wife's habits ought to conform to his 
own. She therefore threw herself so earnestly into all 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 119 

kinds of religious practices that she was, as it were, converted 
in spite of herself. The childish play became reality, and 
took such possession that for one whole week she forgot its 
original object, and could neither sleep nor eat for longing to 
be a nun. Her people were alarmed by her excitement, and 
thought she was going to be dangerously ill. She herself did 
not dislike the idea of dying at such an exalted moment. 
Luckily for herself and the Carmelites, she was obliged to 
consult her father before taking any serious step. Monsieur 
was very angry, both with her and the " bigotes," whom he 
blamed for this new fancy. Mademoiselle submitted at 
once, not without a secret relief. As she says of herself, she 
was not a demoiselle given to long prayers or meditations, 
which usually sent her to sleep. Three days later she was ready 
to join the Court in laughing at her own extravagance. 

The Saujon affair was more serious. M. de Saujon, a 
rather crazy officer on service in Flanders, whose sister was 
of Madame's household, set some intrigues on foot with the 
view of privately forwarding Mademoiselle's marriage with 
the Emperor, or failing him, with his brother, the Archduke 
Leopold — chiefly famous for an enormous pair of ears. If 
Mademoiselle knew anything of these undignified proceed- 
ings on her behalf, she treated them carelessly as " chimeres," 
and the news of Saujon's arrest, one of his letters having 
been intercepted, only startled her a little. It was left for 
the ever-busy Abbe de la Riviere to warn her of her own 
disgrace with the Queen-Regent and Monsieur. They were 
naturally furious, for Saujon was supposed, with or without 
Mademoiselle's knowledge, to have been concerned in a plot 
for carrying her off and marrying her to the Archduke with- 
out anybody's consent. 

In Cardinal Mazarin's view. Mademoiselle was cognisant 
of the whole affair, and he, standing silent and amused in 
the background of her stormy interview with the Queen, 
had done his best to blacken her conduct in Anne's sight. 
Having been summoned to the Palais Royal, she found her- 
self in the presence of her father, her aunt, the Cardinal, and 



i^o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

the Abbe de la Riviere, who had already roused her pride by 
advising her to submit and ask pardon. Strong, she says, in 
her innocence, she moved forward to salute the Queen, who 
received her with a cold and angry air. Mademoiselle 
stepped into a window, and from that point of vantage, 
above the level of her judges, heard and answered the Queen. 

Anne said, very sharply, " Your father and I are aware of 
your meddlings with Saujon and his fine plans." 

Mademoiselle answered, " Would Your Majesty do me the 
honour of telling me what you mean, for I am curious to 
know?" 

"You know very well," said the Queen. " He is in prison 
for your sake, and the whole affair is your doing." 

To this Mademoiselle answered with spirit that it was no 
fault of hers if M. de Saujon was neither prudent nor lucky. 

" We know," the Queen went on, " that Saujon has planned 
to marry you to the Archduke, telling you that he will be 
Sovereign of the Low Countries, with a great deal of other 
nonsense that you have accepted as truth. The Archduke is 
the lowest of men, and the worst match you could possibly find." 

Mademoiselle was silent. 

" Answer," said the Queen. 

Her niece then observed that if Saujon had really planned 
anything so silly and ridiculous, a prison did him too much 
honour : a mad-house was a fit abode for him. And as to 
herself, she was not usually supposed to have lost her senses ; 
which must however be the case, if she had really left such a 
question as that of her marriage to be settled by M. de 
Saujon. She added a few words of sharp reproach to the 
Queen for neglecting her interests in comparison with those 
of other people, and reminded her very coolly of the grati- 
tude she owed to Monsieur. 

The Queen was both angry and amazed. Turning to 
Monsieur and the Cardinal, she cried out, " What assurance ! 
She pretends to know nothing of the whole affair." 

" It needs little assurance to speak the truth," said Made- 
moiselle. 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS 121 

"Very fine!" said the Queen. "The man is attached to 
your service, and as a recompense you lay his head on the 
block." 

To which Mademoiselle retorted, in words intentionally 
pointed, " At any rate, he will be the first." 

The interview lasted a long time, the Queen scolding and 
Monsieur blustering, while Mademoiselle more than held her 
own, and Cardinal Mazarin, as she was well aware, laughed 
at her ready and insolent replies. At length she was allowed 
to go. She departed victorious, in her own opinion, and 
highly excited. 

" That evening," says Madame de Motteville, " the Queen 
did me the honour to say that if she had such a daughter of 
her own she would banish her for ever from Court and shut 
her up in a convent." 

This worthy woman, who had heard all the vacarme from 
an adjoining room, had the courage to take Mademoiselle's 
part, at least as far as concerned the reproaches she had 
showered on her father. Everybody knew that the lazy 
and selfish Gaston did not treat his daughter justly, that 
he neglected her interests and lived on her fortune. Madame 
de Motteville found herself in some slight disgrace with the 
Queen, however, for defending the troublesome girl. Partly 
for Mademoiselle's sake and partly for her own, with the 
Abbe de la Riviere as a go-between and some help from 
the Cardinal, she set herself to patch up a reconciliation 
between the Luxembourg and the Tuileries. After two or 
three weeks this was accomplished, and included the Palais 
Royal, where Mademoiselle, who had been ill of fever in the 
interval, was received, though very coldly, by the Queen. 
Saujon was set free not long afterwards, and the Court, 
which had sympathised heartily with Mademoiselle, had its 
last laugh over the affair. 

In the summer, tired of Paris and impatient of the Court, 
Mademoiselle dashed off independently into the country. 
She stayed first at her own house of Bois-le-Vicomte — 
Richelieu's exchange for Champigny — and went on from 



122 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

there to visit her old friends M. and Madame de Montglat, 
who received her " with joy and magnificence." From 
Montglat she proceeded to the Chateau de Pont-sur-Yonne, 
where she was entertained by Madame BouthiUier, nee de 
Bragelonne, wife of Louis XI IPs Finance Minister, and 
aunt of her friend Mademoiselle de Ranee. She was en- 
chanted with this place : its terraced gardens, fountains, 
canals, avenues, and the splendid interior full of all sorts 
of luxury ; the river flowing at the foot of the hill on which 
M. le Surintendant had built his house : Mademoiselle en- 
joyed it all. She danced, she rode ; the prettiest boat in 
the world was at her service — in vain, for she always hated 
the water. But the great charm of this visit to Pont was 
a first acquaintance with Mademoiselle de Neuville, a young 
and pretty relation of Madame Bouthillier's who acted as 
the daughter of the house. The two girls took an instant 
fancy to each other. Mademoiselle de Neuville, as Madame 
de Frontenac, is a familiar and often annoying figure in 
Mademoiselle's later history. 

She was recalled to Paris by Monsieur, in the middle of 
August, to rejoice with the Court over the victory of Lens, 
gained by Louis de Bourbon, now Prince de Conde. Made- 
moiselle detested him and cared little for his victories, but 
appeared dutifully at the solemn thanksgiving service at 
Notre Dame. 

Thus the day of the first barricades of the Fronde — 
August 26th, 1648 — found her in Paris. The Court had 
hardly returned from listening to the Te Deum laudamus for 
French success abroad, when the citizens were taking up 
arms on behalf of two members of the Parliament, leaders 
of the recent debates in opposition to the Crown, arrested 
in that very hour by order of Mazarin. 

The " wind of the Fronde " was already blowing, and the 
four years' civil war had begun. 



PART II 
THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 

I 648- I 65 2 



CHAPTER I 

1648 

" Un vent de Fronde 
S'est leve ce matin, 
Je crois qu'il gronde 
Contre le Mazarin. 
Un vent de Fronde 
S'est leve ce matin." 

THE CAUSES OF THE FRONDE — FATHER VINCENT — MONSIEUR LE 
COADJUTEUR— THE RIOT AT SAINT-EUSTACHE— A POPULAR PRINCESS 
— RETZ AT THE PALAIS ROYAL— THE JOURNEE DES BARRICADES 

THE growing unrest in Paris, during those years of the 
Regency, ran side by side with the growing hatred of 
Mazarin. As the glory of tax-laden France flamed abroad, 
her misery at home went on deepening. 

All France felt the strain, but the nation generally had no 
idea of actual rebellion. Much of its intelligence, indeed, 
as after-events seem to show, thought the war-game worth 
the candle. The depth of the people's faith and endurance, 
suffer as they might, was almost unfathomable. Starvation 
and robbery seemed a part of the scheme of things ; there 
was little or no revolutionary feeling in the air. Any actual 
anger with the new burdens was mainly confined to Paris. 

The whole affair of the Fronde is sometimes treated very 
lightly as the reactionary selfishness of a few foolish magis- 
trates, the last convulsion of the dying Middle Ages, the 
last struggle of individualism and darkness against expansion 
and future glory, of the old order against the new. It was 
all this, but it was more too, especially in the spirit of its 
earlier time. Perhaps those who view it thus are rather 
blind admirers of Richelieu and Mazarin and all their works. 

125 



126 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

It seems possible, while admitting the many private interests 
and selfish motives that set Paris in a blaze just then, to 
catch a glimpse of the real feeling that united high and low, 
taxed and untaxed, in hearty hatred of the sleek, greedy, 
clever Cardinal. It must be remembered that he was " a 
shameless thief" of public money ; that while millions were 
being poured into his private coffers, as modern French 
historians remind us, the soldiers on the frontier were dying 
of hunger as well as the crushed peasants in the provinces, 
and even the Court was in serious difficulties. No more 
gifts or favours were to be had from the Queen-Regent ; she 
could not even keep her own household and her guests in 
comfort. One remembers the story of Louis XIV as a 
child, badly fed and sleeping in ragged sheets. One re- 
members too how Retz, visiting the Queen of England at 
the Louvre in the winter of 1648, found her shivering, with 
no wood to make a fire, her pension having been stopped 
when Mazarin found that the English alliance meant Crom- 
well instead of the Stuarts. For by this time, married to 
Queen Anne or not — a question which the latest researches 
leave unsettled — Mazarin was all-powerful, and those old 
friends who had tried to warn the Queen against her in- 
fatuation were scattered and silent. But it cost Anne her 
own personal power and the love of the people. 

Never, since the days of the League, had politics and 
religion been so mixed up in Paris as they were at this time. 
Since the revival under St. Frangois de Sales and Cardinal 
de Berulle, the general influence of the Church, if not her 
actual power, had greatly increased. The religious orders 
were reformed and multiplied by private piety ; scandals 
were becoming rarer, at least to outward view. The 
parochial clergy on the whole were good, and the parish 
churches were crowded. Popular preachers, sometimes 
grotesque enough, such as the famous Pere Andre, drew 
large audiences. 

Vincent de Paul, now growing old, still went about in the 
streets and lanes of the city, comforting the poor and 




CARDINAL iMAZARIN 

AFTER A POKTRAIT IJY MIGNARD 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 127 

directing the charity of the rich. He founded philanthropic 
societies ; and Cardinal Mazarin found " ce bonhomme " a 
thorn in his side as to Church patronage. Mazarin was 
ready to sell for a good price, with no regard to the 
character of the buyer, every abbey, bishopric, or benefice 
that he could not bestow upon himself. But there existed 
a Council of Conscience to advise the Queen on these 
matters, and Father Vincent was its most active member. 
It was a struggle between him and Mazarin, as long as 
Anne's religious scruples continued to be a little stronger 
than her personal devotion to the Cardinal. 

The opposition at this time included most of the good 
people in Paris, clergy or laity, whether they took up arms 
openly or not. The spirit which was abroad had so much 
right and reason, that with a leader of unselfish genius it 
might have changed French history. But this leader was 
not forthcoming. 

Archbishop de Gondi was a lazy, good-natured sensualist. 
His brilliant nephew and Coadjutor, consecrated as Arch- 
bishop of Corinth, had all the genius, but not the character 
required. He was a most active ecclesiastic, a dashing 
soldier of the Church, a popular preacher, taking an immense 
interest in his own sermons and their effect. He had no 
morals, of course, but he knew and respected goodness when 
he saw it. His political action is not, it seems, to be entirely 
explained by ambition. He hated Mazarin, and he wanted 
to be a Cardinal ; so far selfishness led him. But he had 
also a great love of adventure, and of showing off as a hero 
before the world. And he was by no means without pity 
for the sufferings of the people. From one motive or 
another he visited much in the poorest parts of Paris. His 
charities were large, and Father Vincent himself did not 
know more of the populace, its troubles and its character 
and its catch-words, than Paul de Gondi, afterwards 
Cardinal de Retz, the notorious " Monsieur le Coadjuteur." 
Dark, small, vivacious, Italian by descent, with his helpless 
hands, fiery temper, and undeniable charm, he was a favourite 



128 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

with many clever men and almost all women. From the 
early days of the Fronde, he had Mademoiselle's respect 
and hearty sympathy. He and she, with the leading Parlia- 
ment men, were at this time the most popular people in 
Paris. 

Mademoiselle had already some experience of riots, and 
enjoyed them. She had seen bands of people marching in 
the streets, beating drums and fluttering flags, to excite the 
citizens against one of Mazarin's early taxes. This was a 
tax on the height of houses which had been built, contrary 
to old regulations, outside the city walls. They were 
measured by the toise^ a six-foot rule, from which the tax 
was known as the toise. There was open resistance, and 
the Court had to hurry back to Paris from Rueil in the heat 
of July, that little King Louis might quiet things down by 
holding a lit de justice. This was still effective in 1644. 

In the following year Mademoiselle had been amused to 
see what the market-folk of Paris could do in defence of 
their rights or their fancies. The great parish church of 
Saint-Eustache, then the largest in Paris next to Notre Dame, 
was much beloved by its population of the quarter of the 
Halles. The old cure. Merlin by name, died, and the Arch- 
bishop of Paris appointed a certain M. Poncet in his place. 
But there was opposition, A young M, Merlin, nephew of 
the late cure, declared that his uncle had intended to resign 
in his favour. The parishioners assembled in crowds to take 
his part ; they had loved their old priest, and were resolved 
that his nephew should succeed him, A body of city guards 
was sent to disperse the crowd in the interest of Poncet, 
whose appointment was perfectly legal. " Cette canaille," 
says Mademoiselle, " seized the church and sounded the 
tocsin." They barricaded the church and the streets round 
it ; they challenged the passers-by, and any one who did not 
reply " Merlin " to their " Qui vive ? " was soundly beaten. 
This state of things lasted three days, and the house of 
Chancellor Seguier was in danger of being pillaged, because 
he, a parishioner, but a man of law, dared to back up the 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 129 

Archbishop's appointment. The people began to barricade 
the markets, and the disturbance was looking very serious 
when the fish-women sent a deputation to the Palais Royal. 
They represented that the Merlins had been their cures " de 
pere en fils ! " The Queen-Regent — very weakly, society 
thought — decided that they must have their way, and a royal 
messenger carried the joyful news to Saint-Eustache. " Upon 
which," says Olivier d'Ormesson, " they sang a Te Deuni 
and shouted, ' Vive le roi, la reine et M. Merlin !' In the even- 
ing they made bonfires in the streets ; even persons of con- 
dition." 

After this, says Mademoiselle, all was calm in the parish. But 
she was sorry that so droll a farce could not have lasted longer. 

It is easy to see that Mademoiselle drove back from Notre 
Dame to her dinner at the Tuileries in an impatient temper, 
and ready to fling herself recklessly enough into any kind of 
new excitement. She was on cold terms with the Queen- 
Regent ; she disliked Mazarin ; she hated the Conde faction, 
just now so triumphant. Monsieur had injured her dignity 
by his indifference as to her marriage, and though this quarrel 
had been made up, she had other serious complaints against 
him. Madame, with her girl-babies, her ill-health, and her griev- 
ances, was nothing but a bore to a lively, wilful stepdaughter of 
twenty-one. Mademoiselle did not care much for her aunt 
the Queen of England, though Henrietta, on her side, had 
not ceased to court the haughty girl for her son. Madame 
de Guise, her grandmother, was still in favour, and she always 
admired the Due de Guise, who after many romantic adven- 
tures was now a prisoner at Naples, his adored Suzanne de 
Pons being shut up, to avoid further complications, in the 
Paris convent of the Filles de Sainte-Marie. Mademoiselle 
was angry with Mademoiselle de Guise and her brother the 
Due de Joyeuse for their disloyalty to her most beloved friend 
Mademoiselle d'Epernon, at this time living in her father's 
southern province, but very soon to take the final step from 
which her friend's affectionate heart suffered so keenly. • 



130 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Altogether, and with the constant, unloved presence of 
Madame de Fiesque, life was as dull as it could reasonably 
be for a princess of immense fortune, living at the Tuileries, 
It is not wonderful that the news of the disturbances in 
Paris filled Mademoiselle with restless joy. Everybody knew 
old Councillor Broussel, the most popular of the two arrested 
members. President de Blancmesnil, though less beloved, 
was a conspicuous figure in opposition to the Cardinal. 
Plainly, important events were in the air, and Mademoiselle 
ordered her coach to drive to the Luxembourg. 

Passing along the Quai du Louvre, in the hot August 
afternoon, she saw companies of guards under arms. Clatter- 
ing on across the Pont Neuf, past Henry's statue, with the 
Island to her left where the furious Parliament was sitting, 
she must have narrowly missed meeting the Coadjutor, en 
rochet et camail, on his way to mediate between the Vieux 
Palais and the Palais Royal. With the cathedral towers in 
view, where the echoes of Conde's Te Deuni had hardly died 
away, Mademoiselle in her coach with her running footmen 
found her passage blocked by an angry crowd and by chains 
across the streets. Then Henry's grandchild had a charm- 
ing experience, never forgotten and often repeated in those 
stormy years. 

" The people of Paris have always loved me," she says, 
" because I was born and brought up there. This has given 
them more liking and respect for me than they generally 
feel for persons of my quality; and therefore, when they saw 
my footmen, they lowered their chains." 

It was characteristic of those wild men and women, with 
their thin, tanned faces, to forget their griefs for a moment 
as the gay blue-eyed Princess, with her commanding Bourbon 
nose and masses of fair curls, pranced proudly by. 

Having paid her visit of ceremony to Madame, Made- 
moiselle drove to the Palais Royal, where she found every- 
body "en grande rumeur." Again she seems to have missed 
the Coadjutor, whose interview with the angry Queen would 
have added very much to the amusement she found in the 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 131 

whole affair. But nobody, indeed, seems to have taken it 
very seriously at first. Neither the Queen-Regent, nor 
Monsieur, nor the Cardinal, knew the Parisians as Retz 
knew them; this is undoubtedly true, even if his enemies 
were right when they accused him both of fomenting and 
exaggerating the disturbances. On that first day the 
Marechal de la Meilleraye, who at the head of his troops 
had seen the armed people rushing, the closed shops, the 
chains and barricades, and had heard the threatening shouts 
of the angry mobs, was the only man who stood by Retz in 
the Queen's cabinet. The Archbishop and the soldier were 
followed to the palace by a great crowd yelling, " Broussel ! 
Broussel ! " 

Retz has taken an immortal revenge on Anne of Austria 
by his description of that half- ludicrous, half- tragic scene. 
At first sight it seems odd that the Queen's surprise at the 
bold attitude of Paris and the Parliament should have been 
as great as her anger ; for the quarrels between the royal 
authority and that of the Magistracy had been growing more 
serious for some months past. The refusals of the Parlia- 
ment to register the King's financial edicts were no new 
thing. Throughout this year the struggle, though not noisy, 
had been very obstinate, and in order to resist new taxes 
more effectually, or rather to hold on to the power of resist- 
ing them, the Parliament had sketched out a kind of con- 
stitution, strengthening its own authority and limiting that 
of the King. Mazarin yielded in one or two points, but he 
would not go far, and the arrest of Broussel and Blancmesnil 
was the consequence. 

The triumph of the English Parliament was an object- 
lesson which did not apply, after all, though it encouraged 
French politicians at this time. The French Parliament 
had great dignity of its own, but none of the popular rights 
of an elected body. It was an assembly of judges, lawyers, 
councillors, magistrates, hereditary and irremovable. This 
character was largely owing to the famous tax called la 
paulette^ invented by M. Paulet, father of the famous beauty, 



132 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and imposed with general approval by Henry IV and Sully. 
It was paid by members of Parliament only, and gave them 
and their descendants a right to their seats. Thus the 
authority of Parliament was no more really popular than 
that of the King, and it did not really follow that the voice 
of Parliament was the voice of the people. 

Both the Queen and the Court were inclined to believe 
that the rising in Paris was not genuine, but had been en- 
gineered by agitators for their own ends. Mazarin probably 
knew better, as he stood smiling by. Anne's high, sharp 
falsetto rings from the pages of Retz down the centuries. 

"It is revolt to imagine revolt. Ridiculous tales invented 
by those who desire it. The King's authority will soon 
settle it." 

While her angry eyes rest on the Coadjutor, Mazarin is at 
her shoulder with his soft voice. 

"Would to God, Madame, that everybody was equally 
sincere with M. le Coadjuteur. He fears for his flock, he 
fears for the city, he fears for Your Majesty's authority. 
I am persuaded that the danger is not what he thinks ; but 
his scruples are most praiseworthy." 

The Queen changes her tone ; the Coadjutor replies with 
an air of such profound and foolish respect that the Abbe 
de la Riviere actually thinks he is in earnest ; and so the 
comedy goes on, while the mob howls outside the palace and 
threatens to break in. 

Monsieur pretends to be angry and strolls out to talk to 
some one, whistling with more than his usual indolence. The 
Due de Longueville looks sad and is really delighted. M. de 
Villeroy, on the contrary, keeps a cheerful face and believes 
the State to be on the edge of a precipice. " Bautru and 
Nogent cracked jokes, and to amuse the Queen acted old 
Broussel's nurse (he was eighty) exciting the people to sedi- 
tion." M. de la Meilleraye flies into a rage. Chancellor 
Seguier speaks well and frankly. M. de Guitaut, muttering 
between his teeth, is challenged by Mazarin and bluntly 
says, " My advice is, give them the old rascal Broussel, dead 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 133 

or alive." On which the Coadjutor murmurs that the first 
course would be neither pious nor prudent, and brings on 
himself once more the violent anger of the Queen. Flush- 
ing scarlet she cries, " I understand you. Monsieur le Coad- 
juteur ! You wish me to set Broussel at liberty. I would 
rather strangle him with these two hands — and those 

who " it seemed as though she would have taken Retz 

by the throat, if the Cardinal had not stepped forward to 
soothe her. 

After this Her Majesty became more reasonable, and 
Retz went forth, scattering benedictions right and left, to 
promise the people Broussel's freedom if they would go 
peaceably home. By his own account, the errand nearly cost 
him his life, and this was only the beginning of things. 

Exquisite indeed would have been Mademoiselle's enjoy- 
ment of such a scene. But if she missed it, there were soon 
plenty of compensations. 

All the wild noise of the tumultuous streets, through which 
M. le Coadjuteur and the Marechal de la Meilleraye made 
their dangerous way, could be heard from the windows of 
the Tuileries. It died down gradually, and the people went 
home. A night under arms, in the Marshal's opinion, would 
have seen Paris sacked ; another day, and not one stone of 
the city would have been left upon another. 

The Court took counsel with itself Distrusting Retz and 
fearing his influence, it resolved to carry matters with a high 
hand. Far from setting the prisoners free, it decided to 
assert the royal authority and to subdue rebellious Paris by 
military force. The next morning all the centre of Paris 
from the Pont Neuf to the Palais Royal was to be strongly 
garrisoned by the King's guards. 

But the news of these things, running in secret channels, 
reached the Coadjutor in his palace by Notre Dame. He 
heard that the Court was laughing at him, that everybody 
knew the sedition was his doing, that his pretence of calming 
the people was nothing but humbug. Retz had no principle, 
and it is not wonderful that he resolved to punish the Court. 



134 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Certainly, between him and Mazarin, Paris was in bad hands 
at this time. If " the devil possessed the Palais Royal," he 
had also a tight grip on the Archbishop's palace. By mid- 
night Retz had made his plans for being master of Paris 
before noon. He cared not at all for Parliament and the 
prisoners ; he had some feeling, perhaps, for the dragooned 
people in the streets ; but personal pique was at the bottom 
of it. This was not the beginning of his grievances against 
the Court. If the Queen and Mazarin had chosen to assure 
themselves of Retz, Paris might have been spared a good 
deal of misery. 

The people's rising on the 27th of August was in great 
measure the Coadjutor's doing, and he frankly confesses it 
in his marvellous Memoirs, It was by his orders and arrange- 
ment that the royal troops were resisted at their first move- 
ment in the morning. His friend, M. d'Argenteuil, posted 
with twenty men near the Porte de Nesle, was ready to drive 
off a special company of Swiss guards sent to make sure of it. 

The rattle of this company's drums as they marched along 
the street by the Tuileries woke Mademoiselle. She threw 
herself out of bed and ran to the window. Presently they 
came back, not quite so cheerful, with wounded men dragging 
behind. The Princess at her high window had never seen 
such a sight before, and it filled her with " pity and terror." 
It was her first experience of actual war. She was glad to 
believe that the soldiers had soon given an account of " ces 
coquins" at the Tour de Nesle. Retz says, however, that 
Argenteuil, disguised as a mason, with his twenty men, had 
killed twenty or thirty Swiss, captured their colours, and 
sent the rest flying. 

Thus, with Mademoiselle at her window and the roll of 

the royal drums — 

Et r'li, et r'lan, 
Relan tamplan, tambour battant — 

began the famous Journee des Barricades. 

All Paris was in a blaze. Everybody was armed. Made- 
moiselle laughed to see men with swords who did not know 





CARDINAL DE RETZ 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 135 

how to hold or manage them. Children of five or six ran 
about with poniards in their hands. All the old weapons of 
the League, unused since Henry Ill's days, even rusty 
lances as old as the English wars, were fetched out and 
sharpened. In two hours, Retz declares, there were twelve 
hundred barricades in Paris, bristling with arms and waving 
with flags. The streets not barricaded were closed with 
heavy chains. People who knew Paris most intimately as 
"le sejour des delices et des douceurs," hardly recognised 
their city. 

The first fury of the people fell on Chancellor Seguier. 
The Queen had desired him to go to the Vieux Palais early 
in the morning, to endeavour to stop the disorder by a royal 
message to the Parliament. His way was through the very 
heart of the city, and it was plainly a dangerous mission, 
but Seguier, with many faults, was not a man to shrink from 
his duty. He started in his coach, accompanied by his 
brother, the Bishop of Meaux, and in spite of his wishes by 
his daughter, the Duchesse de Sully — daughter-in-law of the 
famous Duke, and one of Mademoiselle's early companions. 
The drive was one of fearful excitement. Everywhere 
encountering chains and barricades, opposition and insult, 
the Chancellor's coach floundered from street to street 
through crowds that went on thickening. 

When he reached the Pont Neuf, three or four "grands 
pendards " climbed on the coach and threatened to kill him 
unless Broussel was instantly released. They were shaken off, 
but the bridge was impassable, and he ordered his coachman 
to try for the Pont Notre Dame, by the Quai des Augustins, 
past the hotel of the Due de Luynes, son of Madame de 
Chevreuse, who had married a Seguier, his cousin. At first 
the crowd here was thinner, and the Chancellor decided to 
leave his coach and go on foot to the Palais. But the people 
began to run and cry, "To arms! to arms! Kill him! kill 
him ! " and it was with the greatest difficulty that he and his 
companions escaped into the Hotel de Luynes. The mob 
burst in after them, but they luckily had time to hide in a 



136 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

cupboard. The Chancellor, giving up all hope, confessed 
himself to his brother the Bishop and prepared for death. 

After long and terrible suspense, a strong guard was sent 
to bring him back to the Palais Royal; but the return was 
difficult enough. The mob fired at the coach, killing several 
soldiers ; a spent ball struck Madame de Sully on the 
shoulder and hurt her seriously. 

The Parliament, sitting since the small hours, took the 
news of all this with supreme indifference. They had much 
more important matters to discuss, they observed. Some 
went so far as to say that if the Chancellor was killed he had 
deserved his fate. 

The next spectacle in the streets was the march through of 
a hundred and sixty members of Parliament in their official 
robes, headed by two Presidents, M. Mole and M. de Mesmes. 
Chains were lowered and barricades opened before them. 
Escorted by an enormous crowd which cheered them all the 
way, they arrived at the Palais Royal and demanded an 
audience of the Queen. 

She was prepared to receive them. The Queen of England 
was with her, urging patience and peace by her own bitter 
past experience. Several Princesses were present, among 
them Mademoiselle. From her own account, she had a little 
conversation with one of the deputies as they stood in the 
royal presence. " I did not know him," she says, " but he 
talked to me very freely." They had already begun "a 
fronder M. le Cardinal," and this deputy, perhaps, felt a 
gleam of royal sympathy. 

The Queen-Regent was very angry with the Parliament 
and the people ; the Seguier incident appeared to her a most 
serious insult to the royal authority. The King's power and 
his people's love must both be extinct, she argued, if his 
Chancellor could be so villainously attacked in the streets 
of Paris. Madame de Motteville declares that her royal 
mistress spoke with dignity and good sense in answer to the 
free and earnest words with which President Mole demanded 
the liberation of Blancmesnil and Broussel. Retz shows us a 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 137 

furious woman losing her self-control. According to him, 
the Queen threw all responsibility for the present state of 
Paris on the Parliament, left the room and violently banged 
the door. 

There is something comic in the whole scene. The Parlia- 
ment, thus snubbed, begins to march downstairs. After a 
few hesitating steps, it turns back, and finds Monsieur, 
always agreeable, loitering in the grand cabinet. The Presi- 
dent de Mesmes exhorts him so pathetically that he consents 
to admit twenty members into the ckambre grise, where they 
find the Queen. The President begins to plead with her, to 
draw a terrible picture of the mad city with arms in its 
hands. She will not listen, but flings away angrily into the 
gallery. 

Then Cardinal Mazarin advances on the scene. He pro- 
poses to give up the prisoners, if the Parliament will cease 
its factious attempts to resist and to limit the royal 
authority. 

This proposal needs more length and solemnity of debate 
than can be attained at the Palais Royal, with an anxious 
mob howling without. The Parliament therefore sets out in 
procession on its return to the Vieux Palais, arranging to 
return with its answer in the afternoon, and to meet the Due 
d'Orleans, now a mediator between itself and royalty. 

But the Parliament reckoned without Paris. In those 
roaring streets, through which it had marched so triumph- 
antly an hour before, it was now received with howls of 
rage and disappointment. Chains and barricades no longer 
yielded it free passage. It was expected to bring back the 
liberty of Father Broussel ; it could only announce foolish 
negotiations. 

In the Rue St. Honore the mob pushed so furiously on the 
Presidents and their company, with such terrifying threats 
and bitter reproaches, that many of them tried to escape for 
their lives, losing themselves in the crowd ; but their official 
robes made this difficult. Mathieu Mole, the First President, 
kept his head and his courage, even when a fierce cook, at the 



138 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

head of two hundred men, attacked his sacred person with a 
halberd. "Turn back, traitor!" cried the cook. "Unless 
you wish to be massacred, bring us Broussel, or else the 
Mazarin and the Chancellor as hostages." 

The intrepid President assured the crowd that he had done 
everything possible and would now return to do more. He 
called his companions together, and with the slow, majestic 
tread of injured dignity he led them back to the Palais 
Royal, through a running fire of " insults, threats, execrations 
and blasphemies." The crowd declared that if the Queen 
would not set the prisoners free, they would tear him, Presi- 
dent Mole, in a thousand pieces. 

The palace gates opened once more to admit " les longues 
robes," a string of distracted, frightened, exhausted, and very 
hungry men. Hours had passed, and the sitting had begun 
with daylight. They had had no breakfast. The Queen, 
with a touch of pity for this unfortunate Parliament, sent 
them meat, bread, and wine, and thus revived they set to 
work to deliberate on the royal terms. While they were 
doing this, Monsieur and several princesses begged the 
Queen on their knees to be less inflexible; even the Cardinal 
joined his entreaties to theirs. 

The Parliament, having deliberated, presented its decision 
to the Queen. It was ready to cease all obnoxious delibera- 
tions till after the Feast of St. Martin, on condition that the 
prisoners were immediately set free. With a bad grace, and 
only because of the alarming state of the city, the Queen 
accepted these terms, and the Parliament, proud and vic- 
torious, sure of the future, once more marched forth into the 
streets with news to calm the wild passions there. But Paris 
raged all through that day and night, with cries of hatred 
against the Queen and Mazarin. The next day, Councillor 
Broussel having been brought into the city, the people carried 
him shoulder-high through the streets to Notre Dame, and 
demanded a Te Deuni. The little old man himself, however, 
escaped to his own house, where many fashionable folks 
hurried to visit him. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 139 

The riots went on for two more days, and it needed a 
decree of the magistrates to demolish barricades and re-open 
shops. The Queen was furious, the Cardinal was terrified ; 
the Court, mostly anti-Mazarin, laughed at these signs of the 
times. Mademoiselle, then gloriously amused, shrugged her 
shoulders when she looked back upon it all. There were 
worse days to come. 



CHAPTER II 

1649 

" Lorsque Vigean quitta la Cour, 
Les Jeux, les Graces, les Amours 
Entrerent dans le monastere. 

Laire la laire, Ion lere, 

Laire la laire, Ion la." 

MADEMOISELLE D'EPERNON— MADEMOISELLE DU VIGEAN AND THE 
GREAT CONDE — MAZARINADES AND FRONDEURS — MADEMOISELLE'S 
AMBITION 

IN those early struggles of the Fronde Mademoiselle began 
already to enjoy the discomfiture of her enemies ; but a 
deeper interest in her life, at this time, was the final resolve 
of her dearest friend to take the veil. 

After the Joyeuse match had fallen through, it had been 
suggested to Cardinal Mazarin that Mademoiselle d'Epernon 
should marry Prince Casimir of Poland, released from his 
cardinalate as his brother's heir presumptive. Following the 
King's example, he had applied to the French Court for a 
wife. Mazarin was at this time planning a marriage between 
his niece, Laura Mancini (afterwards Duchesse de Mercoeur), 
and the Due de Candale, the Due d'Epernon's son. The 
French nobility, especially those of royal blood, were not yet 
quite ready to absorb the numerous Italian nieces whom 
Mazarin had brought to France, and M. d'Epernon hesitated. 
However, a prospective crown for his daughter might have 
induced him to accept a Mancini for his son. 

The Polish proposal pleased Mademoiselle's romantic 
mind. The Emperor Ferdinand, it was true, had married 
again ; but he had a son, the King of Hungary, "a hopeful 
prince," who now seemed a likely match for herself Germany 

140 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 141 

and Poland, she observed, were next door to each other ; 
therefore she and her bonne amie might almost spend their 
days together. 

However, Mademoiselle's matrimonial plans were doomed 
to misfortune. Mademoiselle d'Epernon received the pro- 
posal as an honour, but without any intention of accepting it, 
and indeed the story of Princess Marie de Gonzague's experi- 
ences as Queen of Poland was enough to frighten any 
civilised Frenchwoman. 

Mademoiselle remarked that her friend " preferred the 
crown of thorns to that of Poland." If Madame de Motte- 
ville is right, Mademoiselle d'Epernon had cared little more 
for the duchy of Joyeuse than for the Polish kingdom. 
Her heart had been given, once for all, to that Chevalier de 
Fiesque, son of Mademoiselle's governess, who fell at the 
siege of Mardyck in 1646. The young man was a Knight of 
Malta, and therefore not likely to marry. The " tender and 
honest friendship" between these two had seemed to the 
Court very extraordinary, and Mademoiselle d'Epernon's re- 
solve to leave the world was attributed by many to the 
Chevalier's death. Mademoiselle can hardly have been 
ignorant of this love-affair, to which she never alludes. It 
may have been purposely concealed from her, or she may 
have regarded it with high scorn as a sentimental weakness 
beneath her notice. For the Chevalier himself she has words 
of sincere praise : " le plus sage et le plus devot gentilhomme 
de la cour." 

It was in that same year that Mademoiselle d'Epernon, 
leaving Paris for the south with her father and stepmother, 
had told Mademoiselle of her ideas for the future. Kneel- 
ing by the Princess's bed, in the moment of farewell, she 
confided to her that she meant to become a Carmelite. With 
many tears and loving reproaches. Mademoiselle tried to 
change her fixed mind. But nothing she could say was of 
any avail. She could only respect her friend's confidence 
and rest her hopes on the Polish marriage. They wrote to 
each other twice a week. After two years, in the autumn of 



142 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

1648, Mademoiselle's enjoyment of the public troubles was 
interrupted by the news that Mademoiselle d'Epernon, 
travelling with her stepmother, on pretence of being ill, 
to the Baths of Bourbon, had thrown herself into a 
Carmelite convent at Bourges. As usual in such a case, 
Madame d'Epernon's tears and prayers were worse than 
useless. 

Mademoiselle was very angry. The letter she received 
did not improve matters, being written " in a monastic style, 
full of sermons and compliments." She missed the tender 
frankness of old days. She was still more annoyed to find 
that her friend's destination was the great Paris convent, 
which they had formerly agreed in disliking, for no better 
reason than because Madame la Princesse was often there. 
" But I ought not to have been surprised," she says ; " when 
one renounces the world, that is to say, one's relations, one's 
friends, a crown, and one's self, the rest is nothing." 

She afterwards acknowledged that Mademoiselle d'Epernon 
was right. The great convent had many advantages over the 
smaller ones : the house was large, the air was good, the 
community was numerous — young women of wit and 
quality, who had left the world because they knew and 
despised it ; " so good nuns are made." And after all, both 
being in Paris, they could often see each other. 

The first meeting was painful. Mademoiselle's anger had 
changed to a passion of love and grief. She sobbed for two 
hours. Her friend behaved with what some people might 
call firmness ; to Mademoiselle it seemed " la dernlere 
cruaute," and she found it hard to bear being lectured on 
her pitiable state of mind. The whole scene, perhaps her 
whole story, suggests that the new Carmelite was a rather 
cold-blooded person. Mademoiselle with her strong natural 
feeling touches one more, though it may be true, as she 
bitterly confesses, that indeed she ought to have rejoiced 
for her friend, so much the happier of the two. Writing 
long afterwards, in her crowded solitude among the woods 
of Saint-Fargeau, she concluded the sad little story as her 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 143 

constant heart dictated: " Quant k I'amitie que j'ai pour elle, 
elle durera autant que ma vie." 

It was not many months since a sadder heart than Made- 
moiselle d'Epernon's had taken refuge with the Carmelites. 
The flattering jargon of the day gave most fashionable 
women credit for beauty ; one may safely guess that very 
few could really claim that supreme gift. There are many 
witnesses to prove that Mademoiselle Marthe du Vigean 
was one of these. She was the younger daughter of that 
tiresome gentleman whom Mademoiselle, once upon a time, 
innocently conveyed to the Chateau de Richelieu. Her 
mother, always the Duchesse d'Aiguillon's friend and slave, 
had by this influence been able to push herself and her two 
girls in a society hardly theirs by right of birth, the family 
of Vigean being " peu de chose." The sisters danced in 
Louis XIIFs ballet at the Louvre, when Mademoiselle was 
eight years old. The elder one, Anne de Fors du Vigean, 
was made for success in life, and attained it brilliantly. She 
was pretty, gentle, insinuating, ambitious. Mademoiselle 
thought her bozirgeoise and tracassiere. Her first marriage 
to M. de Pons was no great things, but he died when she 
was still quite young, and her second marriage with the 
young Due de Richelieu, Madame dAiguillon's nephew, 
though it displeased his aunt, and even if he was the poor 
fool Mademoiselle calls him, gave her an assured position at 
Court for the rest of her life. 

" Marton, la douce pucelle " — so the excellent Conrart 
wrote of her — was in every way a finer being than her 
sister. She was as proud as she was lovely ; incapable of 
scheming in her own interest or any other. For a few 
months, when she was seventeen, a brilliant destiny seemed 
to open before her : the Due d'Enghien, at nineteen, fell 
passionately in love with her. But Cardinal de Richelieu 
still reigned, and he had arranged to put the finishing point 
on his power by marrying his niece into the royal family. 
The Prince de Conde, too, saw his advantage in this match 
between his son and Mademoiselle de Maille-Breze. So 



144 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

the Due d'Enghien was married in 1641 to the wife he 
consistently made miserable. 

The love affair went on for several years, before the eyes 
of the Court ; but not the most evil of tongues could find a 
word to say against Mademoiselle du Vigean. Everybody 
knew that she was the only woman the great Conde ever 
really loved. His passion for her carried him to the length 
of doing his best, after Richelieu's death, to get his marriage 
with Claire-Clemence annulled by the Pope, that he might 
marry her. His mother and sister, to their own discredit 
and the Queen's displeasure, did their best in his cause. 
But his father and Mazarin were against him, and Marthe 
du Vigean remained beyond his reach. 

At last the hero of many victories resolved to give up 
this most desired of all his conquests. There was no middle 
course for him, and he became as cold and distant as he 
had been passionate. The Court watched the change with 
interest, and at least two men of high birth and character, 
who had been held back by the terror of Conde, came 
forward and offered marriage to Mademoiselle du Vigean. 
She would listen to no one. After some months of disil- 
lusion and despair, having burnt Conde's letters and his 
portrait, she determined to leave the world she cared for no 
longer. 

It was not a new idea to her, though she had never 
willingly encouraged it. One day, we are told, St. Vincent 
de Paul came to visit Madame du Vigean, who was ill. 
When he left the house, Mademoiselle Marthe attended him 
politely to the door. Father Vincent looked into the lovely 
face, perhaps already wearing the spiritual look of those 
who are not to find their happiness here, and said, " Made- 
moiselle, you are not made for the world." Marthe answered 
hastily that she had no turn for the religious life. Fearing 
the power of his saintliness, she begged him not to pray 
that she might change her mind. He went away without 
another word. What his prayers may have been, nobody 
knows. But when at twenty-four, "gaillarde et r^solue," 




LOUIS, PRINCE DE CONDE 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 145 

the Carmelites received her, the Marquis du Vigean in his 
fury threatened to kill not only that whole community, but 
all missionary priests as well. 

When Mademoiselle visited her cousin at the convent, in 
the autumn of 1648, Sceur Marthe de Jesus might be seen 
kneeling through many hours, motionless and ecstatic, in 
the high silent choir. " And I would not change my con- 
dition," she said, " to be empress of all the world." 

It is as a man of twenty-seven, his fame as a soldier made, 
the romance of his life over, that the great Conde marches 
on the scene of the Fronde. Madame de Motteville's portrait 
of him about this time is not altogether attractive. That 
haughty and rather mocking air of superiority to all the 
world, which disgusted Mademoiselle in the whole family, 
had become accentuated in the new Prince since the days 
when he learned manners at the Hotel de Rambouillet. 
Soldiering had roughened and flattery had spoilt him ; his 
young wife was nothing to him ; no flirtation or intrigue 
held him long. The fainting-fit which marked his final 
parting with Mademoiselle du Vigean was the last sign of 
deep feeling Cond6 ever showed. He now mocked at 
gallantry and renounced balls, though his dancing was of 
the best. 

" He was not handsome," says Madame de Motteville : 
" the shape of his face was ugly. His eyes were blue and 
quick and proudly glancing. His nose was aquiline ; his 
mouth was very disagreeable, large, with projecting teeth ; 
but in his whole countenance there was something striking 
and grand, the high look of an eagle. He was not tall, but 
his figure was perfect. He danced well, and had an agree- 
able air, a haughty bearing, and a fine head. His looks 
depended much on careful dressing, curling, and powdering ; 
but he neglected himself ... his face being long and 
thin, this negligence was a great disadvantage to him. It 
was caused by the loss of Mademoiselle du Vigean ; after 
she entered the convent, he was utterly indifferent to 
everything." 
L 



146 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Conde might be indifferent to Court and Parliament alike, 
but neither of them was by any means indifferent to him. 
Both were anxious to secure the support of the great Cap- 
tain. During that autumn of constant doubt and alarm, 
between flights of the Court from Paris, hasty returns, 
struggles with the Parliament becoming ever more difficult 
under the shadow of threatened riots, the Queen-Regent and 
Mazarin tried to flatter Conde by asking his advice in their 
difficulties. The Prince gave cautious ansv/ers advising 
moderation. Her Majesty had better not come to extremi- 
ties with the Parliament, he thought, though she must of 
course maintain the King's authority. Mazarin was dis- 
satisfied with this sort of reply, and the arrest of the Comte 
de Chavigny, son of M. Bouthillier and governor of Vin- 
cennes, for his sympathies with the opposition, was partly 
caused by suspicion of Conde. In the fierce parliamentary 
debates of October, however, Conde was with the Duke of 
Orleans on the royal side. 

" My name is Louis de Bourbon, and I will do nothing to 
shake the crown." 

With the army of France at his back, Monsieur le Prince 
made this answer to the friends and relations who invited 
him to join their constantly strengthening cabal against 
Mazarin. 

Paris was seething with hatred of the Cardinal. The 
streets were full of mazarinades, songs and pamphlets full of 
ridicule, insult, and abuse, not only of Mazarin himself, but of 
" Dame Anne " the Queen. All through that autumn a 
spark would have been enough to set Paris once more in a 
blaze of street fighting. And the great were throwing in 
their lot with the small. The Cardinal was blamed for every 
personal disappointment of every man or woman who wanted 
anything. It was a mere chance that Monsieur was not 
even then at the head of the Frondeurs ; he had been furious 
that the Abbe de la Riviere had been refused the Cardinal's 
hat which was promised to the Prince de Conti ; and it was 
rather cowardice than loyalty that still kept him true, after a 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 147 

fashion, to the King his nephew. Relations between the 
Luxembourg and the Palais Royal were painfully strained. 

The party of the Fronde — a word borrowed from the 
leather sling and stones with which children used to fight 
each other in the ditches of Paris — was very far from being 
confined to those who honestly supported the claims of the 
Parliament. Nearly all the clergy of Paris were influenced 
by M. le Coadjuteur, to whom his uncle the Archbishop 
gave a free hand. Among the princes and nobles who 
openly or secretly took the same side were the Due de 
Beaufort, not long escaped from his prison at Vincennes, 
and now once more the darling of the people ; the Due and 
Duchesse de Longueville, followed blindly by the Prince de 
Conti ; the Prince de Marcillac, who had quarrelled with the 
Court because the Queen would neither give his wife a 
tabouret nor his coach the right of entry into the courtyard 
of the Louvre, and who now made use of his love-affair with 
Madame de Longueville to entangle her and her family — 
Conde excepted — in the hopeless confusion of the Fronde. 

Mademoiselle's opinions were openly expressed, and the 
relations between her and the Regent did not improve. 
Anne had never liked her wilful, outspoken niece, and she 
was now almost too impatient of her wrong-headedness to 
treat her with civility. Since the Saujon affair she had con- 
sidered her brouillonne, a tiresome, meddling, unmanageable 
girl, on whom reasons of state had little influence, and who 
occupied herself a great deal too much with her own pre- 
cedence and her own future. The Queen's stiff Spanish 
ideas were offended by Mademoiselle's " vivacity, which 
deprived her actions of the gravity necessary to a person of 
her rank." The presence of this indiscreet Princess at Court 
must have been like a high fresh wind blowing through all 
dissimulations, diplomacies, and small etiquettes. She was a 
constant annoyance to the Queen, who yet could not possibly 
ignore her ; a girl of royal birth, possessed, as Madame de 
Motteville says, of " beauty, wit, riches, and virtue." 

When the Court slipped away that autumn to Rueil, and 



148 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

afterwards to Saint-Germain, from the unfriendly spirit in 
Paris, Mademoiselle was much offended that she alone, of all 
the royal family, had no summons to accompany it. Madame 
la Princesse carried off her grandson, the Due d'Enghien ; 
Monsieur sent for Madame and her little girls, without a 
word to his eldest daughter. She and Philippe, the little 
Monsieur, ill of small-pox at the Palais Royal, were the only 
royalties left in Paris. She thought it her duty, however, to 
follow the Queen, and found herself a rather unwelcome 
guest at Saint-Germain. She was happier indeed in Paris, 
where ihQfrondeurs welcomed her in the streets. 

Still, at this time, she took no active part in politics. She 
did not at all care to throw herself into the arms of Madame 
de Longueville's party, or to make common cause with the 
canaille. Also her own revived ambition of years seemed to 
make an understanding with Mazarin desirable. These 
people — her father, the Oueen-P^egent, the Cardinal — had 
not cared to interest themselves in marrying her to the 
Emperor. They were ready to throw her and her fortune 
away on the Prince of Wales, who would never, as far as 
appearances went, be King of England. She would show 
them who it was they were treating in this cavalier manner. 
She would marry Louis XIV, and as a popular Queen of 
France she would touch the best that life could offer. In 
the region of Mademoiselle's lofty conceptions, a difference 
of eleven years in age mattered not at all. At the same 
time, political ends set aside, she had now and always a real 
affection and reverence for the stately little King. 

Cardinal Mazarin was clever enough to play with the idea; 
he favoured it, indeed, to a certain extent ; and it was her 
final loss of faith in him which threw Mademoiselle violently 
and definitely on the side of the Fronde. 



CHAPTER III 

1649 

"Que vous nous causez de tourment 
Facheux Parlement ! 
Que vos arrests 
Sont ennemis de tous nos interests ! 
Le Carnaval a perdu tous ses charmes ! 
Tout est en armes, 
Et les amours 
Sont effrayes par le bruit des tambours. 

' ' La guerre va chasser I'amour, 
Ainsi que la cour ; 
Et dans Paris 
La peur bannit et les jeux et les ris. 
Adieu le bal, adieu les promenades, 
Les serenades ; 
Car les amours 
Sont effrayes par le bruit des tambours. " 

A ROYAL FLIGHT — THE PARLIAMENT AND THE PRINCES— THE ADVEN- 
TURES OF MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE — THE BLOCKADE OF PARIS — THE 
COMTE AND COMTESSE DE MAURE 

ON the eve of the Feast of the Three Kings, January 5th, 
1649, Mademoiselle supped with her stepmother at the 
Luxembourg. Monsieur was in bed with an attack of gout, 
a frequent resource of his when public affairs were too 
troublesome. The quarrels between the Court and the 
Parliament as to taxes and prerogatives became each day 
more serious, and Paris was angry and uneasy. " Point de 
Mazarin ! " was the one cry in the streets. The Queen had 
taken counsel with her brother-in-law; a great resolution 
had been arrived at suddenly, and Gaston, who hated all 
these worries, lay in bed thinking about it. 

Some one of the household told Mademoiselle that they 
were all going away the next morning. 

149 



I50 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

" And Monsieur in this state ! " she cried. " Impossible ! " 
and went laughing to his room with the news. 

His only answer was to wish her a good night. 

She flew to Madame, who, absorbed by her health and her 
babies, apparently knew and cared little about the matter. 
They talked it over, however, and agreed that Monsieur's 
silence was suspicious. Mademoiselle drove back later to 
the Tuileries through streets only disturbed by the merry- 
making of the festival. 

At the Palais Royal, that same evening, "Dame Anne" 
was playing Twelfth Night games with her little boys and 
Madame de Motteville. Two or three ladies — Madame de la 
Tremouille, Madame de Gramont, Mademoiselle de Beau- 
mont — whispered that there was something in the wind. 
The Queen surprised her people a little by sending for her 
chief equerry, M. de Beringhen, before she went to bed. 
But her perfect calmness and naturalness deceived them all. 
Her immediate attendants, Madame de Motteville, her sister 
Mademoiselle Bertaut, and another lady, enjoyed the remains 
of the royal supper as usual, talked of bagatelles, said good 
night to the gentlemen in waiting and the captain of the 
guard, and went to bed without any real suspicion of the 
early waking in store for them. The Queen only trusted 
those few on whom she depended for escorting the royal 
family out of the city of Paris — no longer, in her view and that 
of Mazarin, to be trusted with the guardianship of its King. 

" Between three and four in the morning," says Made- 
moiselle, " I heard a loud knocking at my door. I guessed 
what it meant, woke my women, and sent them to open it. 
M. de Comminges appeared. I asked him, ' Am I not to 
go ? ' He answered, ' Yes, Mademoiselle. The King, the 
Queen, and Monsieur await Your Royal Highness at the 
Cours. Here is a letter from Monsieur.' I took it and 
pushed it under my pillow. I said, ' It was not necessary 
to add Monsieur's orders to those of the King and Queen.' 
He begged me to read it ; it was only to require my speedy 
obedience." 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 151 

"J'etois toute troublee de joie," Mademoiselle says. She 
was rejoiced to think that her enemies at Court were making 
a great mistake in this flight from Paris, which she regarded 
as the beginning of miseries. The King's person was never 
in danger, she says ; nobody could or would have hurt him. 
She did not then foresee her own part in all that was 
coming ; but looking back long afterwards on the vengeance 
she so much enjoyed, she observes that vengeance of this 
kind is apt to recoil on one's own head. 

That January morning gave no time for reflection. She 
would not wait for her own coach, or for Madame de 
Fiesque, but started off with Comminges through the streets, 
dimly lit by an occasional lantern and the setting moon. 
At the Cours-de-la-Reine she found the royal coach wait- 
ing, and scrambled in, not without exchanging sharp words 
with the Queen as to her proper seat. She would not now 
quarrel for precedence with Madame la Princesse mere, but 
nothing would induce her to yield an inch to Conde's young 
wife. Both these ladies were in the coach ; there were also 
the Prince de Conti and Madame de Senece, the King's 
governess, besides the two sleepy boys and their royal 
mother. 

Other coaches that rumbled up to the rendezvous con- 
tained the whole Orleans family from the Luxembourg, the 
Prince de Conde and his friends, the baby Due d'Enghien, 
Cardinal Mazarin with some of his art treasures — his nieces, 
the little Martinozzi and Mancini girls, having been sent to 
a convent for safety. There were also as many courtiers, 
and people in the service of the King or the Cardinal, as 
could possibly in any sort of conveyance join the royal 
family's hurried flight. Many private owners of coaches, 
too, suddenly resolved to visit their country-houses, and the 
roads out of Paris were soon crowded : lucky those who did 
not delay long enough to be stopped by angry citizens at 
the gate. To escape was the one idea ; to escape from the 
city ; for report ran that the royal anger had severe punish- 
ment in store for it. The Queen had been heard to say that 



152 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

if she had her will she would besiege Paris and starve it in 
a fortnight. 

Among the few great personages who refused to leave 
Paris in that morning of trouble and terror was the Duchesse 
de Longueville. At the moment, no one at all realised the 
part that this lovely and languid but adventurous creature 
was going to play. She perhaps already saw herself Queen 
of Paris. But even her mother was obliged to accept the 
excuse she made : her state of health would not allow her to 
travel. 

Mademoiselle had never seen the Queen so gay as in that 
journey to Saint-Germain. When the royal party arrived 
there, still in the early morning, they went at once to hear 
Mass. This duty done, they spent the rest of the day in a 
tumult of tongues. People were constantly arriving from 
Paris, and were eagerly questioned as to how things were 
going there. All through the city drums were being beaten, 
and the bourgeois were being called to arms. 

Meanwhile, the self-banished Court was uncomfortable 
enough, though Mademoiselle, for one, made very light of 
her privations. She had no baggage, not even a change of 
linen, and not so much as a mattress to sleep on, for the 
royal palaces, when uninhabited, were empty of everything 
but tables and chairs. She was obliged to borrow a waiting- 
maid from Madame, and to sleep on the floor with the eldest 
of her little half-sisters in a fine gilded room with unglazed 
windows. " Not very pleasant in the month of January." 
The child spent the night waking and being sung to sleep 
again, a fatiguing process. The next night Monsieur 
obligingly gave up his room and a camp-bed to Made- 
moiselle, who slept no better, however, being roused by such 
loud talking that she put her head through the curtains to 
see who was there. The room was full of men in buff- 
coats, and the surprise was mutual. 

Monsieur paid his daughter compliments on her high 
spirits. Madame, it seems, took things differently ; the whole 
Court indeed was lamenting over its miseries. But to Made- 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 153 

moiselle, a healthy girl, everything was fun. " I am a 
creature who minds nothing," she said. " I am quite above 
trifles." She was extremely pleased to hear, however, when 
Madame de Fiesque, shut up at the Tuileries, at last found 
the energy to send her a supply of necessaries, that her 
baggage was allowed to pass out of the gates with marks of 
respect, while that from the Palais Royal was ignominiously 
turned back. She ventured on her popularity so far as to 
send her own carts into Paris, in charge of her page, a 
clever boy of fourteen, to fetch various goods for the Queen. 
The page had a triumphant success. He even visited the 
angry Parliament and brought back polite messages assuring 
Mademoiselle of its devotion. She was proud of her page, 
who was received in audience by the Queen and the 
Cardinal, and told them of all he had seen in Paris. He 
was known afterwards by the title Monsieur gave him, " the 
Ambassador," and was with his mistress through the later 
scenes of the Fronde. 

The Queen-Regent ordered the Parliament out of Paris, 
and forbade the entry of any provisions, dead or living, into 
the city. The Parliament sent a deputation to Saint- 
Germain to reason with their Majesties. Tears were shed, 
even by the little King himself, but the Queen was im- 
placable. 

Then the Parliament, still careful to avoid any appear- 
ance of revolt against the King, issued a furious decree 
against Cardinal Mazarin, as a disturber of public peace, an 
enemy of the King and of the State, and the author of all 
present evils and disorders. He was ordered to leave the 
Court at once, and to be out of the kingdom in a week. 
That time expired, any one might kill him, and all persons 
were forbidden to give him help or shelter. The Parliament 
also summoned the citizens to arms, to defend the city and to 
escort the convoys of provisions threatened by the Queen, 

Mademoiselle found herself in the curious position of 
being popular with both parties : the Queen had suddenly 
become kind and friendly ; the Cardinal was obliging and 



154 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

polite. Mademoiselle had no grievance against the Court, 
and the future royal marriage began to seem really pro- 
bable. It would at any rate please the nation ; no one felt 
more sure of this than Mademoiselle herself. Still, she was 
shrewd enough to refer Anne's present courtesies to the real 
reason : displeasure with the dowager Princesse de Conde. 

For the Prince de Conti and the Due de Longueville were 
two of the first among the long train of princes and nobles 
who slipped back secretly to Paris, a very few days after 
they had followed the Court to Saint-Germain, and placed 
their swords at the service of the Parliament. Their pre- 
text, of course, was the service of the King; to deliver Louis 
from bad guardians and restore him to his faithful people ; 
but in truth they were anything but disinterested. The 
Dues de Bouillon, de Beaufort, d'Elbeuf; the Prince de 
Marcillac ; Archbishop de Retz, in full chase after his 
cardinal's hat ; they all, as well as Conti and Longueville 
and many smaller names, wanted something that Mazarin 
would not give them, and caught at this means to bring 
about his fall. They wanted money, too, no longer to be 
had from the Queen ; and the Parliament began its resist- 
ance by taxing itself and all Paris with immense liberality, 
in order to pay soldiers to fight its battles. This stream of 
gold was easily turned into the pockets of the men who 
raised the troops and pretended to pay them. And these 
wild, impatient spirits wanted above everything excitement, 
and cared little enough for the ruin of their country and the 
sufferings of its poor people as long as they could have their 
full desire of fighting, intrigue, dash, and show. 

Madame de Longueville, with her romantic passion for 
glory, was simply a woman of her own kind. She and 
Madame de Bouillon, taking up their abode at the Hotel 
de Ville to the music of trumpets and violins, all Paris 
filling the Place de Greve with shouts and sobs when they 
appeared with their children on the balcony, made a brilliant 
and fascinating centre to the great town seething with war 
and misery. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 155 

The Queen-Regent did her best to punish Madame la 
Princesse, old friend as she was, for these demonstrations 
on the part of her daughter, son, and son-in-law. It was 
true that Conde remained steady, so far, on the side of the 
Court, whose chief hope he was at this time ; but Conti was 
known to be the Princess's favourite son, and though she 
professed the deepest grief at her family's conduct, this was 
reason enough for suspecting her real sympathies. The 
Queen turned in a marked manner to Mademoiselle, who 
had never found her so amiable, with the easily gained object 
of giving displeasure to Madame la Princesse. 

The persons attached to the Court who did not escape in 
its train had evil times to go through, for the gates were 
soon closed and the mob made the streets almost impass- 
able. Madame de Motteville, left behind by her royal mis- 
tress, had a risky experience. She was unwilling to make 
the sudden start in the dark and to join in the rush to Saint- 
Germain without comforts of any kind. Neither did she 
wish to remain in the city, become so unfriendly and so 
dangerous. She and her young sister, Madeleine Bertaut, 
whose wisdom and goodness gained her at Court the nick- 
name of Socratine, had an idea of escaping to her house in 
Normandy. 

But they put off their departure too long. As they stole 
masked and on foot to the Porte St. Honore, hoping to find 
a conveyance outside, they were surrounded and turned 
back by a crowd of poor people who forced them to take 
refuge in the Church of the Capuchins. They slipped out 
another way and appealed for help to the soldiers on guard, 
who drove them away with threats. They tried to take 
shelter in the Hotel de Vendome, but the porter shut the 
door in their faces. In the midst of a crowd armed with 
paving-stones wrenched up from the street, they ran along 
the Rue St. Honore as far as the Church of Saint-Roch. 
High Mass was being celebrated, and they hastened to kneel 
before the altar. But music and incense and religious 
solemnity had no effect on the wretches who crowded after 



156 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

them into the church. " A woman, more horrible than a 
fury, tore my mask from my face, crying that I was a 
Mazarine and must be killed and torn to pieces. As I am 
not naturally valiant, I was in very great fear." 

Losing her head, poor Madame de Motteville begun to run 
out of the church, but Socratine wisely stopped her, and the 
cure of Saint-Roch, realising the situation, tried to silence 
the howling mob. He also sent for help to the nearest corps- 
de-garde, and the officers, not without difficulty, rescued the 
ladies and escorted them home. 

After this adventure Madame de Motteville gave up all 
idea of leaving Paris, but begged the Queen of England to 
take her and Socratine, with their friend Mademoiselle de 
Villeneuve, under her protection at the Louvre. This Hen- 
rietta readily did. Shut up there with her youngest child, 
the little Princess, sometimes without either fire or food, she 
could give nothing but what she had — beautiful rooms with 
Court furniture. Madame de Motteville remained there 
thankfully till February 21st, when she received a passport 
to rejoin the Queen-Regent at Saint-Germain. She was still 
at the Louvre when Queen Henrietta received the crushing 
news of King Charles's execution. 

For nearly two months Paris was partially blockaded by 
Conde with his army, and the misery and disorder were 
great. Nobody was safe, for the civil and military author- 
ities, the Parliament and the nobles, soon began to disagree, 
and thieves and bullies had the mastery of the streets. With 
the cry of " A Mazarin," any innocent person might be fallen 
upon. People hid their valuables in cellars, for houses were 
searched, and heavy payments demanded from any one who 
possessed anything. 

Food was dear and scarce. The generals of the Fronde 
made dashing sorties to protect convoys of bread and flour 
and herds of cattle ; sometimes they brought them trium- 
phantly in ; sometimes they were driven back with the loss 
of a few lives, more or less valuable. To add to the discom- 
fort of the city, the Seine was in flood, and all the lower 




HENRIETTA r^IARIA OF FRANCE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND 

FROM A POKIRAIT BY VANDVCK 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 157 

streets were turned into canals. People went about in boats, 
and the poor inhabitants of these streets suffered terribly. 
The windows of the Louvre looked down upon a waste of 
grey water under the wintry sky. Paris had indeed lost its 
character for the time. 

But though there was sadness enough for those who had 
to suffer and those who were able to think, the actual party 
of the Fronde went merrily on its way. The Hotel de Ville, 
rather than the Vieux Palais, was now its head-quarters. 
Conti, young and handsome, but deformed, was General- 
issimo of the forces ; a mere figure-head, governed by his 
sister and the stronger brains of the party, but rather pic- 
turesque as antagonist to the great brother who had always 
despised him. He held reviews of the troops in the Place 
Royale, the windows crowded with ladies. The lightness 
and readiness of his men, their gay looks and fluttering 
ribbons, delighted everybody. The Due de Beaufort, fair- 
haired and tall, rode about on a white horse, his hat covered 
with white plumes, admired by the mob and " king of the 
markets." During these days, Madame de Longueville's 
youngest child was born at the Hotel de Ville, and was 
christened " Charles Paris " at Notre Dame, with the City of 
Paris as his godmother. 

The Fronde had lost its serious parliamentary character 
since the spirit of society seized upon it. Everything now 
was a la Fronde: bread, hats, ruffles, fans, handkerchiefs, 
gloves, laces. Retz was delighted with a shopkeeper who 
made cords for his hat in the shape of a sling, the original 
fronde. Never was a fashion more violently taken up. For 
months Paris lived and dressed a la Fronde and read nothing 
but Mazarinades, very poor food from a literary point of 
view. 

Two of the most picturesque among the many original 
people who lived in Paris through the Fronde and sym- 
pathised with it were the Comte and the Comtesse de 
Maure. She was an heiress, Mademoiselle Doni d'Attichy, 
partly Italian by birth. She had been one of Queen Marie 



158 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

de Medicis' ladies, and was a constant guest at the Hotel de 
Rambouillet and the most intimate friend of that other 
eccentric precieuse, the Marquise de Sable. Her husband 
was a younger brother of the Due de Mortemart, therefore of 
distinguished birth. Luckily, he shared many of his clever 
wife's peculiarities. They lived in the Place Royale, and 
were extremely popular in society, for he was the best of 
men, and she, with all her oddities, a generous, good, and 
noble-minded woman. Mademoiselle knew her well and 
esteemed her highly. 

Monsieur and Madame de Maure had a way of arranging 
their lives to please themselves, quite independently of 
fashion. Most people were careful to avoid the country, 
with its bad roads and its darkness, during the winter 
months. M. de Maure always travelled aiix flambeaux. He 
went into the country in November and returned to Paris in 
April ; society did the contrary. He and his wife dined at 
all sorts of odd hours, seldom together, and much later than 
other people. In consequence of this, says a gossip of the 
time, " they only began to think of ordering their horses at 
six o'clock ; it was two hours before they went out ; their 
visits often began at eight o'clock in the evening. They 
were a bore to everybody they went to see ; some were 
going to supper, others had already sat down, some were 
even going to bed, when Monsieur le Comte or Madame la 
Comtesse was announced. . . . And they get up so late that 
they can hardly find a Mass to attend." 

The Marquis de Sourdis, in an amusing portrait of the 
Comtesse de Maure, after describing her heroic air like that 
of a Roman matron, concludes his flatteries : " One may 
truly say that Madame la Comtesse de Maure would be 
perfection, if only, like the rest of the world, she could live 
in obedience to the clock ! " 

During the winter of the first Fronde, contrary to their 
usual habit, M. and Madame de Maure were in Paris, and he, 
a cordial hater of Mazarin, was among the foremost of the 
Frondeurs. Though his military knowledge was not great, 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 159 

he was all for sorties, for fighting, for attacking Conde and 
carrying the war out of Paris, He and Retz, it seems, 
argued against the more prudent of the leaders. The 
Mazarin party were never tired of ridiculing the Comte de 
Maure and his martial fury. Their triolets show the lighter 
side of this " guerrette," as laughing gossips called it. 

Je suis d'avis de batailler, 

A dit le grand Comte de Maure ; 

II n'est plus saison de railler, 

Je suis d'avis de batailler. 

II les faut en pieces tailler 

Et les traiter de Turc k More. 

Je suis d'avis de batailler, 

A dit le grand Comte de Maure. 

BufBe k manches de velours noir, 
Porte le grand Comte de Maure ; 
Sur ce guerrier il fait beau voir 
BufBe k manches de velours noir I 
Cond^, rentre dans ton devoir, 
Si tu ne veux qu'il te ddvore. 
Buffle k manches de velours noir 
Porte le grand Comte de Maure. 

Cond6 himself, they say, wrote the answer : — 

C'est un tigre afifam^ de sang 
Que ce brave Comte de Maure : 
Quand il combat au premier rang 
C'est un tigre affame de sang. 
II se s'y trouve pas souvent 
C'est pourquoi Cond^ vit encore. 
C'est un tigre affam^ de sang 
Que ce brave Comte de Maure. 



CHAPTER IV 
1649-165 I 

" La Reine a dit en sortant de la ville : 
' Je m'en ressouviendrai ; 
' Sachez, Fran9ais, que je suis de Castille ; 

' Que je me vengerai ; 
' Ou bien j'aurai la memoire perdue.' 
Elle est revenue, 
Dame Anne, 
Elle est revenue. 

" La Reine a dit : ' J'ai souffert en chretienne 
' Un si sensible affront ; 
' Ja gagerois qu'avant que je revienne 
' lis s'en repentiront.' 
Elle a, ma foi, sa gageure perdue ; 
Elle est revenue, 
Dame Anne, 
Elle est revenue." 

CHARENTON — THE LAST COLIGNY — THE PEACE OF RUEIL — MADE- 
MOISELLE'S RETURN— THE QUEEN'S BALL — THE ARREST OF THE 
PRINCES — THE SIEGE OF BORDEAUX — MADEMOISELLE " FURIEUSE- 
MENT FRONDEUSE" 

THE most important post held by the Fronde in the 
outskirts of Paris was the village of Charenton, to the 
south-east of the Porte St. Antoine. A garrison of two 
thousand men was stationed here to protect one of the chief 
roads by which the peasants brought food into the city. 
The news that Conde was preparing to attack it caused 
great excitement in Paris, where there was plenty of warlike 
swagger but very little real courage or experience, except 
among the leaders. They were hardly prepared, with an 
undisciplined crowd of Parisian soldiers at their back, to 
march out and meet Cond6 and his veterans in the open 
field. " His camp followers were Caesars and Alexanders 

160 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE i6i 

compared with their best men," says Madame de Motteville, 
who had seen both sides. 

But Charenton was too valuable to be lost without striking 
a blow, and the generals sent a messenger to M, de Clanleu, 
the governor, bidding him hold out, for they would be with 
him at dawn. The army, amounting with the city guards to 
nearly fifty thousand men, began to march out of Paris at 
eleven o'clock on a bitterly cold February night. Frost had 
now succeeded flood, and the Seine was partly frozen over. 
At seven in the morning the rearguard was still loitering in 
the Place Royale. The vanguard had hardly come into line 
among the windmills on the heights of Fecamp, between 
Picpus and the river, with the valley between it and 
Charenton, when " Monsieur le Prince, the terror of the 
Parisians, like a torrent that carries away everything in its 
course, burst upon the entrenched and barricaded village." 

The army of the Fronde literally looked on, while Conde 
with his ten thousand men and distinguished band of officers, 
among whom Monsieur was conspicuous, destroyed the 
garrison of Charenton. It resisted bravely, but was over- 
powered and cut to pieces. The governor, heroic but un- 
lucky, refused quarter and died at his post. The whole 
affair was over in two hours. " The generals of the Fronde," 
says M. Henri Martin, " in spite of their enormous superiority 
in numbers, dared not hazard a pitched battle with the victor 
of Rocroy and Lens. They led their discontented troops 
back into Paris." 

The citizens, crowding to the Porte St. Antoine, could 
hardly believe the news till they actually saw the soldiers* 
returning, horse and foot in their thousands, without having 
struck a blow in defence of so precious a post as Charenton. 
No wonder the people raged and accused the generals of 
treason. M. le Coadjuteur, riding about in a grey suit with 
pistols, had some difficulty in keeping them quiet. 

For Mademoiselle and her society, the chief interest of 
the Charenton affair was the death of Conde's cousin and 
lieutenant-general, Gaspard dAndelot de Coligny, Due de 



i62 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Chatillon. He was a brilliant and extremely handsome 
young man, very popular at Court, and Conde's intimate 
friend. He was the brother of Maurice de Coligny, the 
victim of the Due de Guise, and with the early deaths of 
these two ended the direct male line of the famous Admiral. 

Gaspard had the merit of being a fine subject for gossip 
and story. Five years before his death he ran away with 
a lovely girl, Mademoiselle de Boutteville- Montmorency, 
and married her against the wishes of both families, he being 
a Protestant, though he afterwards changed his religion. 
The adventure was romantic. Mademoiselle de Boutteville 
was on her way to her elder sister's house in Paris, when at 
the very door a number of men seized her and carried her 
off to a coach with six horses in which d'Andelot was wait- 
ing. For her own credit, she cried out and pretended to 
struggle. One of her sister's servants, rushing to her help, 
was killed by d'Andelot's men. The two " amiable persons," 
as Madame de Motteville calls them, dashed out of Paris, 
mounted horses, and escaped. 

There was a tragi-comic scene that evening at the Palais 
Royal, when Madame de Boutteville-Montmorency, with 
her cousin the Princesse de Cond6, came screaming and dis- 
hevelled to the Queen-Regent to demand justice on "ce 
criminel " who had outraged her house by carrying off her 
daughter. Anne, however, was not inclined to interfere 
with the match — quite as good, from a worldly point of view, 
as a young lady without much fortune could expect. 

And even Madame la Princesse turned against the dis- 
tracted mother, when she found that her son the Due 
d'Enghien was the moving spirit of the affair. The Marechal 
de Chatillon had talked of marrying his son to Mademoiselle 
du Vigean, and d'Enghien, in fear of this, advised his friend 
to carry off the girl with whom he was passionately in love. 

Society laughed and had very little blame for the lovers, 
but it was long before Madame de Boutteville forgave them. 
The marriage was not happy. Both husband and wife 
flirted outrageously, and he was the worst of the two. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 163 

Naturally, perhaps, society forgave him more easily than 
his wife did. Everybody was touched by the good end he 
made. Mortally wounded at Charenton, they carried him 
back to Vincennes to die. In his last moments, " cet aimable 
mari" begged his wife's pardon "in the most obliging terms" 
for the offence he had given her by " preferring other chains 
to hers." 

Mademoiselle observes that those who went to console 
Madame de Chatillon found her "fort ajustee" in her bed. 
This did not suggest any deep affliction ; in such a case, the 
Princess adds, "one cares for nothing." But Madame de 
Chatillon, now one of the supreme beauties of the Court, 
cared a good deal for the Due de Nemours, the foolish 
husband of poor Mademoiselle de Vendome, and he re- 
mained in " her chains " for the rest of his short life. She 
also flirted violently with the great Conde himself. 

As to the war, the combat of Charenton did not imme- 
diately bring it to an end, though one of many causes which 
inclined the Parliament towards making peace with the 
Court. It showed what Conde could do, if he chose to 
attack the city of Paris with her incapable crowd of de- 
fenders. 

And as those weeks dragged on, the better minds in the 
Parliament rebelled against the selfish, restless spirit and 
the greedy demands of the noble frondeurs. Messages and 
embassies began to pass between Saint-Germain and Paris. 
Stiff demands on both sides were moderated. The princes 
in Paris disgusted the Parliament by actual negotiations 
with Spain : to get rid of their enemy Mazarin they would 
even bring the enemy of France into the field. But, accord- 
ing to M. Martin, it was the shock given to the " bonne 
bourgeoisie " of Paris by the news of the death of the King 
of England which proved the greatest factor for peace. They 
had no intention at all of breaking with royalty or up- 
setting their old constitution. A tragedy so "enormous" 
showed them to what lengths civil war might lead a people. 

There were riots when Paris found that the Queen did 



i64 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

not intend to yield her Minister to his enemies. But in 
reality the patched-up peace, made early in March, was a 
relief to all parties, except that of Madame de Longueville. 
The country all round Paris, and indeed all the north-west 
of France, was in a tragic state of devastation caused by 
Conde's army and the mercenary troops of Erlach and 
Digby, employed by Mazarin ; the suffering, the starvation, 
were terrible. Christian charity was not lacking ; but it 
could not overtake the effects of thoughtless cruelty. The 
letters of Mere Angdique give a heart-rending picture of 
desolation throughout these years of the Fronde. 

The Court at Saint-Germain rejoiced sincerely when this 
first act of the civil war was over. In spite of the Queen's 
calm confidence, which had struck Madame de Motteville 
curiously enough when she returned to her from boasting 
Paris, every one had suffered keenly enough during the 
blockade. Winter weather in the great draughty palace 
without comforts, almost without necessaries : so Made- 
moiselle describes those very unpleasant weeks. "They 
tried to starve Paris," she says, "but Paris had abundance, 
while at Saint-Germain we were often short of food ; for 
the troops in the country seized all the supplies, so that we 
were half famished." The decencies of life were seriously 
disturbed too. It was impossible to go into any correct 
mourning for King Charles I ; the necessary draperies could 
not be had, either for persons or equipages. 

Mademoiselle was the first of the royal family to return 
to Paris after the Peace of Rueil. Queen Anne was in no 
hurry to restore the King to his troublesome subjects. 
Mademoiselle was accompanied by two ladies of royal 
blood, with whom she had made friends at Saint-Germain : 
the Princesse de Carignan, sister of the late Comte de 
Soissons and wife of a Prince of Savoy, and her daughter 
Louise, Princesse de Courci, afterwards married to the 
Margrave of Baden. Madame de Carignan was an ugly, 
agreeable woman and a wonderful story-teller. Her pockets 
were always full of sugarplums, and Mademoiselle had all 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 165 

her nation's love for them. Mademoiselle de Courci was 
clever and sensible. " When I wanted to be merry, I talked 
to the mother; when I wanted to be serious, to the daughter/' 
says Mademoiselle. 

Her entry into Paris was something of a triumph ; the 
Parisians received her " avec grand applaudissement." She 
had earned their love afresh by a kind action which she does 
not record of herself. After Charenton, Conde's men threw 
their prisoners naked into the freezing Seine, telling them 
they might go to their Parliament. Mademoiselle, hearing 
of their distress, sent orders that they should be well clothed 
at her expense. 

She stayed only a few days at the Tuileries, and then 
returned to Saint-Germain. Each day she paid a visit of 
condolence to the widowed Queen of England, whose quiet 
endurance of her sorrow was not easy to be understood by 
a girl without experience and with rather more than her 
share of the hardness of youth. The world of Paris flocked 
to the Tuileries. In her spare time Mademoiselle drove in 
the Cours-de-la-Reine, taking with her the young Duke of 
York, a very pretty boy, who was now with his mother at 
the Louvre. Mademoiselle found James a much more 
lively companion than his elder brother. Charles himself 
was again in France some weeks later, and the suit of " the 
King of England " was earnestly pressed on Mademoiselle, but 
she never, either now or later, listened to it with any favour. 

The general amnesty of the Peace of Rueil was followed 
by some amusing scenes. The noble frondeurs and fron- 
deuses went hurrying to Saint-Germain to pay their respects 
to the King and Queen. The Prince de Conti, their leader, 
was forced by his brother to embrace Cardinal Mazarin. He 
was then allowed to present his friends: the Due de Bouillon, 
the Prince de Marcillac, the Comte de Maure, and others. 
Monsieur presented the Due d'Elbeuf. The Due de Longue- 
ville arrived, rather ashamed, from his disloyal occupation 
of stirring up Normandy against the Crown. Even the 
Duchesse, after all her exploits, was received with her step- 



i66 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

daughter by the Queen. Anne's manner to all '(hQ.?,^. fdcheux 
was cold and grave ; Mazarin showed his usual gentleness 
and his usual craft, arranging a marriage between his niece 
Laura Mancini and the Due de Mercoeur, elder son of the 
Due de Vendome. The only person refused admittance to 
Saint-Germain was Madame de Chevreuse, whom the 
amnesty had brought back to Paris. Among the very 
few who declined to appear there were Archbishop de Retz 
and the Due de Beaufort. 

Thus ended the first act of the Fronde ; but it very soon 
became clear that the peace was nothing but a truce, and 
that nobody was satisfied. Les grands, rapacious as ever, 
did not give themselves away for nothing ; they were deter- 
mined to make a better bargain with the King than with 
the Parliament, and their demands were out of all reason. 
Conde, with his loyal professions, was as bad as any of them. 
Madame Arvede Barine finds some excuse for them in the 
fact that Richelieu, in his policy of levelling them down, had 
taught them to beg from royalty. Now " they begged with 
arms in their hands." 

The Court did not return to Paris till the middle of August. 
It had been thought necessary to watch the never-ending 
frontier war from Compiegne. Mademoiselle was exceed- 
ingly bored by that grand entry, in which, to be sure, she 
was not the principal figure. The Parisians were wild with 
joy at the sight of their young King, a stranger to them 
since that fateful night in January. All the public bodies 
with an immense crowd of people met him at Saint-Denis. 
The heat was extreme. There were eight people in the 
Queen's coach, including Cardinal Mazarin and the Prince 
de Conde, and the progress lasted five hours — from three in 
the afternoon till eight in the evening. The streets echoed 
with " Vive le Roi ! " Mademoiselle had a terrible headache. 
For the Queen-Regent it was a day of triumph ; the city was 
in too good a humour even to cry " Point de Mazarin " ; and 
she was personally welcomed with enthusiasm, even by the 
fishwomen and the market-people. 




XHK DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE AS A WJJJOW 

AFTER A POKTRAlr BY FERDINAND 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 167 

On September 5th, the King's eleventh birthday, the 
Queen gave a grand daylight ball with supper and fireworks 
at the Hotel de Ville, to which all the distinguished persons 
of both parties were invited. The little King led off with 
his cousin, Mademoiselle, to everybody's admiration ; and 
there were other striking couples, such as the Prince de 
Conde and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, a dazzling young 
beauty returned from exile ; Madame de Longueville (who 
had to ask for an invitation) and the Due de Rohan ; the 
Due de Mercoeur and his fiancee, Mademoiselle Mancini. 
She, by the by, was the eldest and much the best of 
Mazarin's nieces. Mercoeur was an amiable man, much 
attached to her. He never recovered her early death, but 
took orders, and ended his days as a Cardinal. 

During that autumn of 1649, Mademoiselle went through 
the horrible experience which destroyed so much beauty in 
those days : she had the small-pox. It treated her kindly, 
however ; she kept her fine complexion, and came off easily 
with a few weeks' imprisonment. All the world crowded to 
inquire for her ; its cards and notes were her only amuse- 
ment. She noticed with indignation that the Prince de 
Conde was the one great personage who neglected this 
courtesy, " which deepened my aversion," she says. She 
met him soon after her recovery at the Palais Royal, when 
the King and his brother were confirmed. She and her 
father were godparents to Louis, he and his mother to 
Philippe. She was still further offended by his daring to 
joke with her, to accuse her of merely pretending to be ill. 
If he meant this for a compliment, it was not favourably 
received. Mademoiselle allowed him to see her displeasure. 

The breach was every day widening between Conde and 
the Court. He was now reconciled with his family, and his 
demands for them and for himself were exorbitant. His 
fierceness and insolence, with the terrible state of the country 
— wars without and distress within — forced Mazarin to make 
a kind of treaty : no appointment was to be made in the 
Government, in the royal household, in the army, or in 



i68 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

diplomacy, without the Prince's advice ; his interests should 
be the Cardinal's first consideration ; he should be consulted 
as to the marriages of the Cardinal's nephew and nieces. 
The Cardinal's own influence may be measured by the fact 
that these were matters of high political importance. 

In the nature of things, such a treaty could not last long. 
Conde took such advantage of it that he soon made the 
position impossible. The Queen and Mazarin had the sup- 
port of Retz and the Parliament, as well as of the Due 
d'Orleans, in their decision to arrest the three Princes — 
Conde, Conti, and Longueville. 

This was a coup d'etat of so risky a nature that Monsieur 
did not care to be mixed up in it openly, and we are not sur- 
prised to find that he had been in bed for two days when the 
arrest actually took place, on January i8th, 1650. 

On that very day Mademoiselle went to see her father at 
the Luxembourg and reproached him for bearing with 
Conde's insolence so long. She spoke impatiently, passion- 
ately. "You ought to have him arrested !" she cried. Gas- 
ton answered, " Patience ; you will soon be satisfied." A 
certain excitement in his sleepy manner convinced Made- 
moiselle that there was really something in the wind. She 
drove off to the Palais Royal and arrived there at a thrilling 
moment : frightened servants, closed doors, corridors full of 
soldiers, the Queen's room guarded by two men with car- 
bines ; a crowd in the ante-chamber, eagerly awaiting the 
end of a long sitting of the Council. It was over at last, 
and the Queen sent for Mademoiselle. " You are not sorry?" 
she said, and Mademoiselle rejoiced with her. M. de Guitaut 
and M. de Comminges, Captain and Lieutenant of the 
Guard, had arrested the three Princes as they left the Council, 
and were even now driving away with them, in a coach 
escorted by a io.^ gendarmes, to the fortress of Vincennes. 

The Parisians lighted bonfires and sang in the streets : — 

C'est Condd, ce diable, qu'on m&ne 
Ce dit-on, au bois de Vincennes. . . . 

All Condi's friends fled in different directions. His mother 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 169 

and his wife, with Madame de Chatillon and others, retired 
to Chantilly. Madame de Longueville first went with Mar- 
cillac into Normandy, and then, finding herself insecure at 
Dieppe, escaped by sea and landed in Holland, where she 
and the Mar6chal de Turenne made a private treaty with the 
Archduke Leopold : Spanish troops were to help in liberat- 
ing the Princes. The Due de Bouillon, Turenne's brother, 
as well as many other nobles, great and small, began at once 
to light up a flame of civil war in the provinces. There 
were risings in every direction. The fighting which had 
desolated the country neighbouring on Paris and on the 
frontier was now spread all over France, and the sufferings 
of the people during this Fronde of the Princes were far 
greater than any caused by the troublesome Parliament. 

These were some of the first consequences of Mazarin's 
coup d'elat, and many queer things were to happen before his 
policy justified itself. The next two years were full of 
kaleidoscopic changes in persons and parties. At first the 
Parliament and the Coadjutor, the Due de Vendome and the 
Due de Beaufort, were on the royal side. Mazarin heaped 
favours and provinces on these {orm^r frondeurs. Paris was 
governed by the Due d'Orleans, lieutenant-general of the 
kingdom. Leaving the city in these unsafe hands, the Court 
spent most of the year 1650 in progresses about the dis- 
turbed districts of the kingdom, not without a good deal of 
success in pacifying them, at least for the moment. 

Mademoiselle had to attend the Queen on the journey 
into Normandy, which bored her very much, as the carnival 
was near, and all Paris was dancing. She was glad to return 
in time for a ball at the Luxembourg, but her pleasure was 
spoilt by the exasperating news that the Court was again 
leaving, this time for Burgundy. It was not only Monsieur 
who could be ill when it pleased him. Mademoiselle took 
a leaf out of his book of wisdom, and retired to bed with 
a sore throat, flying into "a horrible fury" with her faithful 
Saujon when he ventured to remonstrate. The sore throat 
answered its purpose, and Madem.oiselle remained in Paris. 



I70 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Early in July the Court started on a grand expedition to 
Bordeaux. The city had for some time been rebelling 
against the Due d'Epernon, governor of Guienne, and it was 
easy enough for the young Princesse de Cond^ to light up the 
fire again. Her husband deserved little devotion from Claire- 
Clemence, but this quiet, delicate, neglected girl was certainly 
one of the bravest of the many women of rank who took an 
active part in these wars. After an adventurous escape with 
her little son from Chantilly, where the Princesses had been 
put under careful surveillance, she had been escorted to the 
south by Bouillon and Marcillac (now La Rochefoucauld) 
and had thrown herself upon the chivalry of the Bordelais, 
who received her with enthusiasm. She now held the place 
against the King's troops, demanding her husband's liberty 
as the price of surrender. 

The Court, including Mademoiselle, established itself at 
Libourne while the army besieged Bordeaux ; a mild siege, 
carried on indulgently by the Marechal de la Meilleraye. 
Nothing is plainer in this confusion of civil war than 
Mazarin's moderation. Unlike his predecessor, he would 
win the nobles, not crush them. One has to confess that 
such cleverness deserved to succeed in the end. 

The heat at Libourne was tropical. The Queen suffered 
from it, and lay on her bed all day, not dressing until the 
evening. Mademoiselle found life rather dull, with no occu- 
pation but writing letters and working tapestry. Later, when 
the Court moved to Bourg on the Dordogne, she spent hours 
at her window, watching the boats as they passed up and down. 

There was plenty to occupy her mind, however. Un- 
deterred by past experience, she was again at this time 
allowing Saujon secretly to negotiate her marriage with the 
Emperor, once more a widower. But the worthy Com- 
minges, in whom she confided at Libourne, spoke his mind 
so plainly on the subject that although she could not recall 
Saujon, she was glad that his mission came to nothing. 
Rash, foolish, and self-willed. Mademoiselle could still always 
listen to the advice of a sensible man. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 171 

Another excitement was the birth of a half-brother, 
Monsieur's only legitimate son. This child did not live long ; 
but Mademoiselle declares that her joy at his birth was 
great and sincere. She rejoiced loudly, and the Court with 
her. " I wrote to their Royal Highnesses," she says, " in 
transports that might have softened rocks for ever." 
Monsieur and Madame sent affectionate answers. Made- 
moiselle was never again on such charming terms with her 
family. 

She was also pleased and interested to find herself a 
person of political importance. Monsieur treated her as his 
representative at Court, and this became suddenly a post of 
honour, for Monsieur, influenced by Retz and the Parlia- 
ment, took on himself the work of a peacemaker. Every- 
body was alarmed by the victorious advance of Turenne 
and Madame de Longueville. The Queen would have 
fought the matter through ; to her anything seemed better 
than the liberation of Mazarin's enemies. But she could 
not stop the course of events. 

Mademoiselle found herself the centre of a new policy ; 
consulted by the Queen, who tried to drag her into intrigues 
on her own side ; flattered by Mazarin, who tried to persuade 
her that he was her father's best friend ; respectfully acknow- 
ledged by the deputies from Bordeaux, who came to Bourg 
to negotiate a treaty. Personally, Mademoiselle cared little 
for peace, and she feared, like Anne, the release of the hated 
Conde ; but loyalty to her father was always one of her 
strongest motives. She spoke her mind in favour of peace, 
both to the Queen and the Cardinal. He said, laughing, 
" You breathe un air si bordelais through those windows of 
yours, that I fear in the end it may make you frondcuse." 
It was not long before the Queen had occasion to say, 
" Mademoiselle devient furieusement frondeuse ! " 

Peace was made, Mademoiselle showing her sympathy 
with the deputies from Bordeaux. Madame la Princesse, 
grieved and disappointed, came to visit the Queen, bringing 
with her, besides her pretty little son, the Dues de Bouillon 



172 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

and de la Rochefoucauld. They were all exiled to their 
estates. No promises were made as to the release of the 
Princes. Two days later the Court sailed down the river 
to Bordeaux in beautiful weather, and entered the city on 
October 5th, to the clamour of cannon, musketry, and 
bells. 

This entry was not a very great success, however, as far 
as the Queen and the Cardinal were concerned. The people 
of Bordeaux were suspicious of the army that lay about 
their gates and of the royal ships in the river. Mademoiselle 
was the only person who enjoyed real popularity; it is need- 
less to say that she was pleased. She lodged in a fine house 
belonging to President de Pontac, who had married Made- 
moiselle de Thou, sister of the unhappy friend of Cinq- 
Mars. Everybody came to see her ; her Court was much 
larger than the Queen's. The Parliament of Bordeaux 
insisted, in spite of Mazarin, on paying her the same honours 
as were paid to little Monsieur, the King's brother. On the 
whole she was enchanted with the city, its natural beauty, 
fine buildings, lively people. At the end of ten days, how- 
ever, she was very glad to find herself once more on the 
road to Paris. 

As the winter advanced, the plot thickened, and the con- 
fusion of parties became worse confounded. Monsieur, 
under the influence of Anne de Gonzague, wife of Edward, 
Prince Palatine (a younger son of the Elector Frederic and 
Elizabeth Stuart, " the Winter Queen "), as well as of 
Madame de Chevreuse and Madame de Montbazon, now 
on the side of the Princes, began to incline towards that 
party and to draw the Parliament in the same direction. 
The death of Madame la Princesse mhe, and her magnifi- 
cent funeral in the Church of the Carmelites, brought to 
people's minds the greatness of the Conde and Montmorency 
families, now deep in sorrow and disgrace. Mademoiselle 
herself, dancing as usual through the winter, grew every 
day more angry with Mazarin, who kept none of his fine 
promises to her. She called him a knave and a cheat. She 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 173 

was delighted when her father quarrelled with him openly, and 
when a new cabal of the Fronde drove him out of France 
for the time. So changed were her feelings that when the 
Prince de Conde, set at liberty in February, 165 1, came 
laughing back to Paris and was joyfully received by the 
changeable folk there, no one had a warmer welcome for her 
old enemy than La Grande Mademoiselle. 



CHAPTER V 

1651-1652 

" Adieu le bal, adieu la danse, 
Adieu mesure, adieu cadence, 
Tabourins, hautbois, violons, 
Puisqu'a la guerre nous allons." 

FRIENDSHIP WITH CONDlfe— LA PRINCESSE PALATINE AND MADAME 
DE CHOISY — ROYAL MATCHES — CONDE IN ARMS — THE QUESTION OF 
ORLEANS — A NEW " JEANNE LA PUCELLE " 

IT seems that Mazarin could not do either of the two 
things that would have helped him most at this point 
of time. He could neither make the Coadjutor a Cardinal 
nor Mademoiselle de Montpensier Queen of France. His 
own strong prejudice hindered the former, the Queen- 
Regent's dislike and — according to Madame de Motteville 
— Mademoiselle's own peculiarities prevented the latter. 
Mazarin therefore had no means of buying over the Fronde, 
and he suffered a temporary eclipse, while Conde triumphed. 

It was at the Luxembourg, on the evening of his arrival, 
after his reception by the whole city in the streets and by 
the unwilling Queen at the Palais Royal, that Mademoiselle 
had her first friendly talk with the hero. Polite com- 
munications had already passed between them through 
M. de Guitaut, the Prince's gentleman, nephew of the good 
Captain whose painful duty it had been to arrest him. 
They had acknowledged that their mutual detestation was 
unreasonable. Now, face to face, they continued their con- 
fessions with amusing frankness. 

" He confessed to me," says Mademoiselle, " that he had 
been delighted when I had the smallpox, and had hoped 
passionately that I might be marked or disfigured ; in fact, 

174 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 175 

that he could not have hated me more. I told him that his 
imprisonment had been a joy to me, that I had heartily- 
desired it, and that I had never thought of him without 
wishing him ill. This explanation lasted some time, de- 
lighted the company, and ended with the most friendly 
expressions on both sides." 

It was suggested to Mademoiselle that, failing the Emperor 
or the King, the Prince de Conde would be a very suitable 
husband for her. They were of the same race, equals in 
blood. His great deeds and fine qualities might be set 
against her good looks and immense fortune. Such an 
alliance between Monsieur and Monsieur le Prince would 
make them redoubtable indeed, and would certainly give in- 
tense displeasure at Court. 

There was one objection. Monsieur le Prince had a wife 
already. But in the course of that spring she fell grievously 
ill of erysipelas, and everybody thought she would die. 
Mademoiselle, prancing restlessly up and down her rooms in 
the late evening, talked the whole matter over and over 
again with her excellent secretary, M. de Prefontaine. It 
seemed that the same idea was besetting Conde, for instead 
of attending on his sick wife, he visited his cousin every day. 
But " the chapter ended suddenly," for Madame la Princesse 
recovered. 

Mademoiselle cared little, one way or the other. Wild, 
thoughtless, etourdie, as she describes herself, amusement 
was the one object of her life during this year and the 
next. 

In Paris, life was full of intrigue and excitement, social 
and political. People seem to have changed sides at every 
glimpse of personal advantage ; society was one great 
gamble. There were those shrewd enough to doubt whether 
the Cardinal had disappeared for ever ; whether he would not 
return with added power and beat the Princes in the end. 
For the air was full of plots in his favour, and at this very 
time, at the height of her uncle's disgrace, the Due de 
Mercoeur married Mademoiselle Mancini. The young King, 



176 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

an unknown quantity as to character, was approaching his 
majority, but his mother still ruled him, and her affection for 
the Cardinal was unchanged. The Luxembourg, the centre 
of opposition, was beginning to lose its hold on Retz and the 
Parliament ; but Mademoiselle, always conspicuous, always 
extreme, very popular in Paris and furieusement frondeuse on 
the side of Orleans and Conde, had become a formidable 
figure, to be reckoned with by all. She stood above the crowd 
of gamblers, really asking for nothing but the fun of the fair. 
Some of them thought it worth while, however, to dangle 
temptation within her reach. 

Her excursions into the country that summer were un- 
usually delightful. She had a charming set of companions : 
Madame de Frontenac — with whom, as Mademoiselle de 
Neuville, she had made friends at Pont-sur-Yonne three 
years before ; the two sisters La Loupe, of a younger branch 
of the d'Angennes, M. de Rambouillet's family — lovely, 
young, fascinating, and not yet what they were afterwards, 
as Madame d'Olonne and Madame de la Fert6, a scandal 
even to the society of their day; Mademoiselle de Reme- 
court, with a genius for comedy, afterwards quenched among 
the Carmelites. 

If Madame de Longueville was the most romantically war- 
like of the ladies of the Fronde, Madame la Princesse 
Palatine was the most politically clever. She seems to have 
felt in the course of that summer that the wind was chang- 
ing slightly, and that the Queen-Regent's side might be the 
safest in the long run. Cond6 was indeed too violent, too 
uncertain, to inspire complete confidence in persons whose 
first interest was their own, and his relations with the 
Regent were now most unfriendly. Madame la Palatine 
seized on a slight pretext for quarrelling with him, and it 
was understood that she had made peace for herself with the 
Queen. But this was not enough for her active mind and 
her greedy desires. 

She was very intimate with Madame de Choisy, who had 
always been devoted to her sister, the Queen of Poland. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 177 

(By the way, on the death of King Ladislas, a dispensation 
from the Pope had permitted Marie de Gonzague to marry 
his brother and successor, Casimir, the former suitor of 
Mademoiselle d'Epernon.) A certain good-for-nothing Sec- 
retary Bartet, agent of the King of Poland and a strong 
partisan of the Cardinal, was much in the confidence of both 
these ladies. 

One day Madame de Choisy visited Mademoiselle, an- 
nouncing that she had something important to say. When 
they were alone together, she began : " I am come to make 
your fortune." 

Mademoiselle was amused, slightly scornful. 

" That would be a strange thing to say to me, if any one 
but Madame de Choisy said it !" 

Madame de Choisy went on to explain that the Sieur 
Bartet had been asking questions about Mademoiselle, and 
had ended by saying, " I want to make her Queen of 
France." 

Mademoiselle listened attentively. 

*' You know," said Madame de Choisy, " men like Bartet 
are all-powerful at Court. They can do anything with the 
Cardinal, and he is master of the Queen ; so I think the 
affair is hopeful." 

She left Mademoiselle to consider the suggestion, and to 
realise that Mazarin's return must be a condition of her 
attaining the couronne fermee. A few days later she came 
again, full of a fresh development. Madame la Princesse 
Palatine, far cleverer and far more powerful than M. Bartet, 
was ready to give her help, for a consideration. 

" Elle est gueuse," said Madame de Choisy. " She is a 
bold beggar. If she arranges the affair, you must give her 
three hundred thousand crowns." 

Mademoiselle made no objection. 

" And you must make my husband your chancellor," the 
lady went on. " We shall have a merry time. La Palatine 
will superintend your household, with a salary of twenty 
thousand crowns. She will sell all appointments ; so you 

N 



178 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

can judge that your interest will be hers. We shall have la 
coniedie every day at the Louvre ; she will govern the King." 

" It can be imagined," Mademoiselle says to her readers, 
" how charmed I was with the idea of such dependence, 
proposed to me as the greatest pleasure in the world." She 
listened with incredulous wonder, as Madame de Choisy 
went on. 

" The King will be of age in a fortnight ; you can be 
married a week later. La Palatine will make this proposal 
to Monsieur, with that of the Cardinal's return. He will be 
too much rejoiced at the former not to grant the latter." 

Mademoiselle was extremely doubtful. First, she seems 
oddly to have thought that Monsieur would be bound by his 
promises ; second, she reminded herself that he had never 
lifted a finger to forward any marriage for her. Madame 
de Choisy's eager assurances did not convince her ; and it is 
pleasant to know that she absolutely refused to grant Bartet 
a private interview. She might listen to plotters and 
schemers with a certain amused favour ; but they could 
not lead her far along their dishonourable track. 

Madame de Motteville declares that the same kind of 
temptation had been set before Mademoiselle some months 
earlier, when the Duke of Orleans first sided with the Princes 
against the Cardinal. Mazarin then sent one of the Queen's 
maids of honour to offer the young King's hand to Made- 
moiselle, on condition that she would separate her father 
from the Prince de Conde. The odd creature, for some 
reason of her own, laughed the bribe away. 

Madame de Motteville says that neither she nor her father 
ever really knew how to act for their own advantage. 

" Mademoiselle," she says, " with much wit, brilliancy, and 
capacity, and a desire for a royal crown, has never known 
how to say Yes at the right moment. Some passing fancy 
has always conquered her own real feelings and wishes. 
When she might have had what she wanted most, she has 
never accepted it." 

The truth seems to be that a certain pride, as well as a 




MADEiMOIbliLLE DE MOiNlPENSIER 

FROM A STEKL ENGNAViNG 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 179 

certain sentiment, took possession of Mademoiselle's mind 
whenever the question of le petit mari of her childhood was 
immediately in presence. If we judge her rightly, she was 
not going to climb any back stairs that might lead to the 
throne of France. 

Her idea seems to have been that the boy King himself, 
certain to marry early, might prefer a marriage with a cousin 
he knew and liked, though eleven years older than himself, 
to a marriage with a strange princess, if also a cousin. Even 
then people were talking of the Infanta of Spain as a prob- 
able Queen of France. That way lay European peace, and 
Mademoiselle herself saw that the Spanish match was the 
best of all. Putting it aside, she considered herself the next 
best, both politically and socially. But she would have 
liked to become Queen by her own personal attractions, by 
the King's affection for her and the pleasure he took in her 
company, rather than through any clever negotiations of 
Madame la Palatine and Madame de Choisy. There seems 
nothing strange or unworthy in this, even if the circum- 
stances and Mademoiselle's own eccentricity made it all 
rather absurd. There is not of course the slightest evidence 
that Louis, a shy boy of thirteen, ever faced the idea of 
marrying his tall and dashing cousin ; and it is certain that 
his mother's inmost mind was strongly set against any such 
plan. 

During that autumn Mademoiselle found herself con- 
stantly beset by suitors and flatterers. Her fortune, if not 
herself, was a valuable ally that nobody could afford to 
neglect. Charles II, once more in France, pressed his suit 
with his mother's help and Monsieur's half-hearted approval. 
Madame de Fiesque tried to influence Mademoiselle in his 
favour, pointing out what a good deed she might do by con- 
verting him from Protestantism. The Duchesse d'Aiguillon 
argued strongly on the same side ; so did that lovely flirt, 
the Duchesse de Chatillon, from other motives of her own. 

But the more the English match was Dressed upon 
Mademoiselle, the more clearly she saw its disadvantages, 



i8o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

not only for herself, but for her father. Other friends warned 
her that even her enormous fortune would not go far in 
conquering England ; that when it was all spent, and spent 
in vain, she might die of hunger ; that Charles himself might 
die, and she would then find herself the most wretched 
Queen in all the world, dependent on her father. Unluckily, 
man as boy, Charles did not succeed in touching his 
cousin's romantic side, and she very soon found herself 
embarked on an enterprise which suited her much better 
than the conquest of England. 

France was once more flaming with civil war, lighted up 
by the Prince de Conde, this time, for his own selfish ends. 
Finding that, Mazarin or no Mazarin, he could not govern 
the kingdom to please himself, he and his friends took up 
arms in the south-west, burning and ravaging the miserable 
country. An alliance with Spain made him more formidable. 
The King's army followed him into the provinces. There 
was fighting in every direction. Mazarin appeared with an 
army on the north-east frontier, and soon joined the Court 
at Poitiers with a number of nobles and officers, among 
whom Bouillon and Turenne were the most distinguished. 
They, with many others, had ranged themselves on the 
royal side since the early days of the Fronde. 

It was a stormy winter. Paris and the Parliament were 
wild with rage at the Cardinal's return. They set a price 
upon his head, and took the meaner revenge of breaking up 
his art collections and selling his library of precious books. 
Parties were torn in pieces, for there was a moment when the 
keenest frondeurs shrank from the definite rebellion and 
civil war meant by joining Conde, however they might hate 
and resist Mazarin. The Parliament, on consideration, 
decided only to " remonstrate " with the King, and to induce 
the provincial parliaments to do the same. Retz saw his 
interest in going a little further along the road of modera- 
tion, and accepting the inevitable as he now saw it in the 
shape of Mazarin. In the course of a few weeks he received 
his red hat, the object of his ambition. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE i8i 

But Conde had still a very strong party in Paris, as well 
as in the provinces, and Gaston d'Orleans was its chief. He 
hastily collected the troops dependent on him and placed 
the Due de Beaufort at their head. They, with other armies 
in northern France, were ready to co-operate with Conde 
and Madame de Longueville in the south. One army was 
partly formed of Spanish troops from Flanders, under the 
Due de Nemours ; another was raised in Anjou by the Due 
de Rohan. All through that spring of 1652 the wretched 
provinces were ravaged by marching and fighting bands, 
many of them foreign mercenaries of the most savage 
kind. Angers was besieged and taken by the royal forces. 
Beaufort and Nemours, marching to its relief, did not arrive 
in time. 

The King's army began to advance towards Orleans, Mon- 
sieur's own apanage, and therefore most important to the pres- 
tige of the Fronde ; but its loyalty to its suzerain was doubtful. 
It seemed that the Duke's own presence was necessary to 
make the citizens of Orleans see their duty. Rohan and 
Nemours left their commands and hurried to Paris to lay the 
matter before him. 

But Monsieur did not wish to leave Paris. His excuse 
was, that the cause of the Princes there depended on his 
presence ; but he vexed Mademoiselle to tears by his com- 
plaints of being persecuted by his party, his longings for the 
repose of Blois, his envyings of the lucky people who meddled 
in nothing. 

A few hours later she was wildly joyful at the thought, 
suggested by eager friends, that she might be sent to take his 
place at Orleans. 

It was Palm Sunday, the 24th of March. Mademoi- 
selle had intended to drive out that day to Saint-Denis, 
to spend Holy Week at the Carmelite convent there. She 
put off going till the next day, to see what might happen, 
and attended a sermon at the Capuchin church in the Rue 
St. Honore, preached by the famous frondeur, Pere Georges. 
His sermons against the Regent and the Cardinal were so 



i82 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

" insolent," and had such an effect on Paris, that the Court 
had set up a powerful opposition preacher, Pere Le Boults, on 
its own side. 

Mademoiselle, anxious and hopeful, spent the rest of the 
day at the Luxembourg, her father in a state of nervous, 
restless irresolution. It was not till late in the evening, 
after she had returned to the Tuileries, that the Due de 
Rohan arrived with Monsieur's commands : Mademoiselle 
was to go to Orleans. So she entered on the most exciting 
experience of her life, the adventure by right of which she 
lives in history. 

It was two o'clock on Monday morning, the Feast of the 
Annunciation, before she went to bed, and she was in church 
at seven, asking God's blessing on her enterprise. Some 
hours were spent at the Luxembourg, where all the world of 
the noble Fronde came crowding to wish Mademoiselle a 
good journey. Each one, as usual, had his own political and 
personal ends in view, and they all saw their own brilliant 
fortunes in those of Mademoiselle. 

Madame de Chatillon, changing her English note of a few 
months earlier, as became the adored of M. de Nemours and 
the intimate friend of Conde, assured Mademoiselle of the 
" passion " of all three " for her service " and their strong 
desire to make her Queen of France. It was their private 
intention, she declared, to make this a condition of peace. 
Nothing, Monsieur le Prince thought, could be better for the 
nation, for Mademoiselle and her family, and for himself. 
Mademoiselle was evidently pleased. When this last act of 
the civil war broke out, it had occurred to her that a crown 
might fairly be won on battle-fields, though not by back- 
stairs intrigues, and that the bribe Madame la Palatine had 
asked for would be better employed in openly fighting the 
Cardinal. She had therefore sent a message to the Princess 
through Madame de Choisy, politely and definitely declining 
her offers. Madame de Chatillon's idea, though not quite new, 
was much more suitable to her lofty temper. 

However, when the lovely lady begged to accompany her 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 183 

to Orleans, she did not consent. People would talk, because 
of M. de Nemours, she reflected. Besides, awkwardly- 
enough, the Duchesse de Nemours had expressed the same 
wish ; " if she had come, I know her husband would have 
been in despair." So Mademoiselle shook off these ladies, 
received her father's few parting instructions, and mounted 
her coach in the court of the Luxembourg, attended only by 
her favourite Madame de Frontenac and by Madame de 
Breaut^ and Madame de Fiesque, daughter and daughter- 
in-law of her governess. 

She was a splendid figure in her plumed hat and riding- 
dress of grey and gold. Her coach, with its escort of a 
dozen men commanded by a lieutenant of Monsieur's 
guards, left the palace in the midst of a crowd calling 
down blessings on her head ; all through the streets the 
people were shouting, " Point de Mazarin ! " 

The start having been made at three in the afternoon, the 
first stage from Paris was a small town then called Chatres, 
now Arpajon. Here she slept, but very early in the morn- 
ing she was on the road again, so early that the Due de 
Beaufort, riding hard from Paris to overtake her, was only in 
time to ride on at her coach-door. At Etampes they dined 
together; and a few miles beyond this she was met by a 
troop of five hundred horse told off from the army as an 
escort of honour. 

On the wide high plain of the Beauce in the fresh bright 
air, larks singing in glorious weather, distant cathedral spires 
shining as now in sunny distance, with the tramp of horses, 
the gay ringing of bridles, the flash of steel and glow of 
colour all round about, it is not surprising that Made- 
moiselle's coach could contain her no longer. Luckily, at 
the right moment, something broke in its lumbering 
machinery, so that there were no difficulties of etiquette. 
Mademoiselle mounted joyously on horseback and rode on 
with her delighted troops ; this indeed was something like 
the game of war. She gave her orders; she stopped couriers 
and confiscated their despatches. One of them was from 



i84 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Orleans, and brought the exciting news that the royal army 
was not far off. 

The army of the Princes was at Toury, and here Made- 
moiselle was received by the Dues de Nemours and de 
Rohan and other generals, and was invited to preside at a 
council of war. At first she laughed at the notion ; but 
very soon she took it rather too seriously to please the 
generals. They, especially Beaufort and Rohan, gave them- 
selves airs of knowing Monsieur's military plans better than 
she, his daughter, who had received special instructions from 
him. She spoke out her displeasure plainly. All these fine 
young men, even the proud and obstinate Beaufort, appear 
to have bowed before her, promising to carry out her orders. 
It was arranged that the army should take up a strong 
position on the Loire, without crossing it, so as to prevent 
the royal forces from doing so. In the meanwhile Made- 
moiselle herself would post on to make sure of Orleans. All 
kinds of false and contradictory rumours had made their way 
through from that undecided city : the King was already 
there ; the governor had been arrested, and so forth. Actu- 
ally as to the governor, the clever old Marquis de Sourdis, 
not even Monsieur, in these confused days, knew positively 
whether he was for Mazarin or for the Princes. 

Mademoiselle, wildly impatient, started so early on Wed- 
nesday morning that her escort was not ready. Indeed, her 
untrustworthy cousin Beaufort had forgotten to order it ; so 
he said, at least. It seems not impossible that her mission 
was distrusted by both sides. The honest, straightforward 
intentions of a princess rash in word and deed hardly suited 
the crowd of selfish princes, who were almost as ready to 
make a bargain with the King and Mazarin as to quarrel 
among themselves. 

Mademoiselle dashed on with her own small escort, but 
had not gone half-way when she was met by a gentleman 
from Orleans, M. de Flamarens. He was charged with many 
messages, and Mademoiselle stopped at a wayside inn to 
receive them. It appeared that the worthy Orleanais were 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 185 

in a terrible state of mind. It was a case of " a plague o' 
both your houses." They had an equal terror of the two 
armies. The King was not far off, and they were afraid to 
enrage him by receiving Mademoiselle. Would she there- 
fore be good enough to lodge in some neighbouring chateau, 
pretending illness, till the King and his array had passed by ? 
They promised that he should not be received into the city, 
and that Mademoiselle personally would be welcome, as 
soon as he was clear away. They begged, however, that no 
princes and no army might accompany her. 

Mademoiselle was not moved by these messages. 

" I am going straight on to Orleans," she said. "If they 
shut their gates at first, I shall not be discouraged. If they 
let me in, my presence will strengthen those who are well 
disposed and will bring back those who are not. Nothing 
inspirits the people more than to see persons of my quality 
expose themselves to danger, and they are almost sure to 
submit to any one with a little resolution. If the Mazarin 
cabal is the strongest, I shall hold out till I am fairly driven 
back to the army. The worst that can happen is arrest. In 
that case, I shall be in the hands of men who speak my 
language, who know me, and even in captivity will show me 
the respect due to my birth. Indeed, I dare to say that such 
an adventure in Monsieur's service will teach them to 
venerate me all the more." 

And so, without listening to another word, Mademoiselle 
got into her coach, and with her ladies, her " marechales de 
camp," as Monsieur called them, hurried on at full speed and 
reached Orleans at eleven o'clock in the morning on Wednes- 
day, March 27th. 

She had a secret reason for haste, which she did not con- 
fide to her companions till the adventure was at its height. 
Before she left the Luxembourg on Monday, the Marquis de 
Vilaine, known as a clever astrologer, had whispered a pre- 
diction in her ear. " From Wednesday at noon till Friday, 
everything you undertake will succeed. And during that 
time you will do something extraordinary." 



i86 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

At first the affair did not look hopeful. The city gate at 
which she arrived was closed and barricaded. Her name had 
no magic to open it. After three hours of tiresome waiting 
in her coach, she and her small suite, including a few gentle- 
men, descended at an inn outside the walls ; it was called the 
Port-de-Salut, she says, a name of good omen. But she 
could not rest there long. In spite of prudent objections 
made by the gentlemen, she and her ladies, with two or three 
of her men, set out to walk along the ditch that bordered 
the walls. The ramparts were covered with people shouting, 
" Vive le roi, les princes, et point de Mazarin 1 " Made- 
moiselle scandalised her companions by crying out in 
answer, " Go to the Hotel de Ville and make them open 
the gate ! " But Orleans only acknowledged her presence 
by a polite offering of bonbons from the governor, whose 
son, the Marquis dAlluye, watched her movements from a 
window above the gateway. 

Mademoiselle, marching along, arrived at another barred 
gate. Here were a captain and a company of guards, who 
presented arms in her honour. " I cried to the captain to 
open the gate. He made signs that he had not the keys ; I 
said he could break it open, and that he owed obedience to 
me rather than to messieurs de la ville, since I was their 
master's daughter." This argument being useless, Made- 
moiselle proceeded to threats and strong language, to which 
low bows were the only reply. 

She was more successful with the boatmen on the Loire, 
which she reached a little further on. A few compliments 
and presents inspired these men to do wonders in her 
service. They undertook to break open the Porte Brulee, in 
the wall of the quay, and set to work at once, the guard 
being contented to look on. Mademoiselle also looked on 
from her side, scrambling like a cat through thorns and 
briars to a point of view on the opposite bank. Her two 
young marechales, Madame de Fiesque and Madame de 
Frontenac, were enchanted to follow her anywhere, but most 
of her party were very nervous, and poor Madame de 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 187 

Breaute, " the most cowardly creature in the world," 
shrieked with terror through the whole business. " I 
believe her transports even made her swear. She diverted 
me much," said Mademoiselle. 

The quay before the gate had to be reached by climbing 
from the water some distance below. The men made a 
bridge of boats for the Princess and her ladies. After 
crossing this they had to mount a long and crazy ladder with 
a broken rung. But the adventure was all the more amusing. 

Within the gate, a merry crowd of Orleanais, people and 
soldiers, encouraged the blows of the boatmen. As soon as 
a way was made, by tearing out two planks from the heavy 
barred door, a servant lifted Mademoiselle across the muddy 
quay and pushed her head foremost through the hole — " me 
fourra par ce trou." 

A quick rattle of drums greeted the " new Maid of 
Orleans " as she thus took the city by storm. Welcomed by 
the shouting people, she held out her hand to be kissed by the 
captain of the guard. Monsieur deVilaine was a wise astrologer. 

Mademoiselle's personal triumph was complete. She was 
lifted into a chair and carried shoulder-high through the 
streets, with drums beating, in the midst of a laughing crowd 
that thronged to kiss her hands, she too laughing heartily 
in her delight. Her suite were all left behind ; she was 
absolutely alone among the citizens of whom her gay daring 
youth had made so easy a conquest. There were only a few 
minutes, however, of this glorious fun. Her perch was not 
exactly comfortable ; she assured the men she knew how to 
walk and persuaded them to set her down. Then her ladies 
overtook her, muddy and excited ; Madame de Fiesque, they 
say, had been kissing the boatmen ; Madame de Frontenac 
had lost a shoe. Then she was met by the governor and 
the town councillors, more frightened than pleased. She 
took things with a high hand : sent for her escort, received 
addresses from the civic bodies, assumed without resistance, 
as her father's representative, the chief command in Orleans. 
It was evening before she had time to remember that she 



i88 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

was hungry, having lived on excitement since five o'clock in 
the morning. 

She had stormed Orleans just in time. The very next 
morning the royal keeper of the seals arrived with a number 
of gens de la cour to demand entrance. Mademoiselle, 
surrounded by blue-scarfed officers and a devoted crowd, 
watched his discomfiture from a tower by the gate. " I let 
them know," she says, " that I was mistress in Orleans . . . 
there was no hope left for les mazarins." Later in the day, 
enthroned at the Hotel de Ville, Mademoiselle lectured the 
authorities on their duty according to the Fronde. They 
listened respectfully enough. 

But the cloud of glory had its dark side, and it was not 
long before the gay triumphant laughter changed to frowns 
and fits of anger. Even Monsieur's charming letter, in which 
he told his daughter that her action was worthy of the grand- 
child of Henry the Great — even Conde's friendly congratula- 
tions — did not make it an easy task to manage either the 
citizens of Orleans or the army of Nemours and Beaufort ; 
and Mademoiselle had taken the command of both. 

Orleans had a most reasonable terror of the army. Made- 
moiselle found about fifty soldiers, who had been caught 
robbing or murdering in the neighbourhood, shut up in 
prison, and it was only her frank offer to have them hanged 
in the public squares which induced the authorities to send 
them back to the army. Her discipline, she declares, restored 
peace and confidence in the villages in twenty-four hours. 
The poor peasants began to venture once more to their 
fields and to market, without the fear of having their cattle 
and horses and poultry stolen, or worse still, of being tortured 
in many horrid ways to extract money. 

It is not strange that the Orleanais were bent on keeping 
the army at a distance. Mademoiselle readily concurred in 
this. But they had the same objection to the presence of 
any princes or generals. It was all very well to receive a 
lively young princess, but a fierce man of war was a different 
affair. When the Prince de Conde offered Mademoiselle a 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 189 

visit, she had some difficulty in persuading the authorities 
to admit him, and quarrelled seriously with M. de Sourdis, 
the mazariti governor, on the subject. In the [end, Conde 
went on straight to Paris after the combat of Bleneau, and 
with the Bishop's help Mademoiselle made up her quarrel. 
M. de Sourdis, a good-natured old man, was in the habit of 
sending her every day a packet of his special confitures, so 
that he was distinctly pleasanter as a friend than as an 
enemy. Mademoiselle had the face to ask, through the 
Bishop, for all the packets she had missed during the quarrel. 
M. de Sourdis courteously sent them. " So I gained a good 
deal by making up with him ! " 

It was easier to deal with the Orleans authorities, tiresome 
as they might be, than with the leaders of the army. Made- 
moiselle was furious with M. de Beaufort, who had gone 
beyond her orders, ignored M. de Nemours, and made an un- 
successful attack on Jargeau for the sake of the bridge over 
the Loire. The only consequence was the loss of some valu- 
able lives, including that of an heroic old soldier, the Baron 
de Sirot, who was brought to Orleans to be nursed under 
Mademoiselle's care, but died of his wounds. 

As it was necessary to decide on the further movements of 
the army, Mademoiselle met the generals and other officers at 
a house outside the walls. Here her presence was no check 
upon the violent tempers of Beaufort and Nemours. The 
latter "se mit a jurer et a pester," declaring that Beaufort was 
betraying Monsieur le Prince, on which Beaufort struck him, 
and swords were drawn. There was a horrible tumult, every- 
body rushing to separate them. At last both heroes gave up 
their swords to Mademoiselle. She took her cousin Beaufort 
into the garden and made him beg her pardon on his knees. 
M. de Nemours was not so easily pacified ; it was after mid- 
night before he would either apologise to Mademoiselle or be 
reconciled with his brother-in-law, and she left them unwil- 
lingly in the charge of their respective officers. 

This quarrel, never really made up, was to end fatally four 
months later. 



CHAPTER VI 

1652 

" Nous qui sommes 
De par Dieu 
Gentilhommes 
De haut lieu, 
II faut faire 
Bruit sur terre 
Et la guerre 
N'est qu'un jeu." 

MADEMOISELLE QUEEN OF PARIS — THE SHRINE OF SAINTE-GENE- 
VIEVE — DUKE CHARLES OF LORRAINE — THE PORTE ST. ANTOINE — 
THE CANNON OF THE BASTILLE — THE MASSACRE AT THE HOTEL DE 
VILLE — THE DUEL OF BEAUFORT AND NEMOURS — MADEMOISELLE EX- 
PELLED FROM THE TUILERIES — THE END OF THE FRONDE 

AFTER a few weeks of authority, Mademoiselle began to 
J~\. find Orleans insupportably dull. She had walked all 
over the town, had visited the churches and convents, had 
played at ninepins in her garden, had entertained the magis- 
trates, had written hundreds of letters and signed a thousand 
passports, had gone out on riding expeditions, visiting the 
houses in the neighbourhood, had accepted fetes from the 
Governor and the Bishop. April was ending ; May, the love- 
liest Parisian month, drew her irresistibly back to Paris. 

Her return was one long triumph. The army of the 
Fronde, now at Etampes, received her as commander-in- 
chief: she rode through the ranks with her two field-mar- 
shals, saluted by waving swords, by cannon, trumpets, and 
drums. She was honourably escorted, by order of Turenne, 
through the quarters of the royal army, now at Chatres, 
between the Frondeurs and Paris. Nearer still, at Bourg-la- 
Reine, she was met by the Prince de Cond^ himself, with a 

190 




o 5 

< £ 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 191 

crowd of lords and ladies. His reception was most friendly; 
she invited him into her coach, and they talked all the way 
into Paris, the road and the streets lined with coaches and 
filled with enthusiastic people. The city loved Mademoiselle 
and admired Conde, though it dreaded and opposed the entry 
of his army within the walls. 

The atmosphere of the Luxembourg was less agreeable 
than that of the streets. Monsieur had not wished his 
daughter to return so soon ; her restless energy and her 
indiscretions bored him, and he was jealous of her popularity. 
Conde's violent politics also bored him ; he feared, not with- 
out reason, what might happen when the two worked to- 
gether. Monsieur had taken to his bed with a touch of 
fever ; and though he received Mademoiselle with smiles, he 
would hear no talk of public business. He would hardly 
even listen to the news of Turenne's attack on Etampes, 
made immediately after Mademoiselle had passed through 
the quarters of the two armies. 

A visit to Madame, made in company with Conde, was 
not successful. Madame showed little interest in her step- 
daughter's triumphal return. With great disgust she sniffed 
Conde's Russia-leather boots. She found the odour so un- 
bearable that Monsieur le Prince had to retire into the ante- 
chamber while Mademoiselle paid her visit. 

They consoled themselves by driving in the Cours, enjoy- 
ing the acclamations of the crowds, which were so tre- 
mendous that they almost embarrassed Mademoiselle. But 
indeed she was satisfied, even enchanted. It was not 
only the Parisians in the streets with whom she was 
popular. All the society of the Fronde came thronging to 
the Tuileries ; and from her return to Paris it was here, not 
at the Luxembourg, that the Princes held their court and 
met in council. "J'etois comme la reine de Paris," says 
Mademoiselle. "J'etois honoree au dernier point, et en 
grande consideration." Conde, with many words, assured 
her that there was nothing he desired more than to see her 
Queen of France, and she herself believed that this ambition 



192 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

was about to be gratified. Peace must be made soon, and 
she was led to believe that her marriage with Louis XIV 
would be the chief condition. 

Afterwards, she knew very well that the air was even then 
thick with intrigue, and that not only Monsieur, but her new 
friend Conde, withheld full confidence from her. Made- 
moiselle, all honour to her, was never a good conspirator. 
Her speech was always too open ; her decisions were too 
honest and quick ; she was never capable of working under- 
ground, either in her own interest or that of any one else. 
She was never a match, for instance, for Madame de 
Chatillon, who about this time was trying to draw the Court 
and the Princes together without any question of her or her 
claims. It is satisfactory to know that this mean intrigue 
came to nothing. 

Mademoiselle, in her innocent confidence and frank self- 
satisfaction, really seems to stand out as the one honest 
person in the last scenes, confused and struggling, of the 
Fronde. If in one sense she was the centre of the party, in 
another she was curiously alone. Her ladies, the women of 
whom she was fondest, were as selfish and frivolous as the 
rest of the world. There was not a good or a sensible man 
in her family. She had one absolutely faithful friend — her 
secretary Prefontaine ; and she had always the fine com- 
pany of her own high birth and splendid position, which no 
one respected more than herself 

The misery in Paris and its environs was very great at this 
time. The civil war was not yet actually in the streets, but 
outside the walls the green country was blackened and 
devoured by armies whose means of living were robbery and 
violence. The miserable peasants crowded into Paris ; home- 
less and starving, they lay down and died in the streets. 
Private charity, guided by Father Vincent, did much ; but 
what the people needed was peace ; and the mob had now 
two cries : Lapaix, lapaix ! and Point de Mazarin ! Often rival 
groups came to blows, shouting these rival cries, and the streets 
were dangerous for every one not known to favour Conde. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 193 

Madame de Motteville tells us of ladies of quality, 
driving across the Pont Neuf, who were dragged from their 
coach and thrown into the Seine. She also describes a 
scene which struck every one as unreal and curious, even at 
that time. The people had insisted that the shrine of Sainte 
Genevieve should be carried in procession through the streets 
"pour chasser le Mazarin et avoir la paix." Cond6 and 
Beaufort, not satisfied to watch the procession, with Monsieur 
and the rest of their world, from the windows, went down 
into the streets among the crowd. There they courted 
popularity by behaving not only like pious women, but like 
crazy devotees. Conde, on his knees in the street, sprang 
up and flung himself in among the priests who were guard- 
ing the silver-gilt, jewelled shrine. After kissing it a hundred 
times with every mark of passionate devotion, Beaufort 
following his example, he withdrew amidst shouts of applause. 
" Ah ! le bon prince ! et qu'il est devot ! " 

Matters were not improved by the arrival of Madame's 
brother, Duke Charles of Lorraine, with an army of mer- 
cenaries. 

He came on the pretext of helping the Princes, but it was 
fairly well known, even then, that he had been negotiating 
with Mazarin ; also that Monsieur welcomed him as a 
counterpoise to Conde, whose furious extremes were alien- 
ating the Parliament and all moderate men by making peace 
wellnigh impossible. Madame de Chevreuse, gained over 
by Mazarin, and estranged from the Conde faction by the 
breaking off of the Prince de Conti's engagement with her 
daughter, was the leading spirit of this intrigue. It was a 
clever one, for it added the last straw to the misery of 
France, and pushed the Fronde nearer to its end. The army 
of Lorraine was the worst of all that had devastated the 
wretched country near Paris, and when the Duke retired — 
after having agreed with Turenne to raise the siege of 
Etampes, where the main army of the Fronde was held in 
check — the wrath of Paris was such that no one, for fear of 
being thrown into the river, dared call himself Lorrain. 
o 



194 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

For the mob at this time, as for Mademoiselle, Cond6 
could do no wrong. The has peuple of Paris was anti- 
royalist, as well as anti-Mazarin, and the English royalties 
at the Louvre came in for a share of its hatred. The young 
Duke of York was a volunteer in Turenne's army; Charles II 
had the credit of meddling between the Court and the Due 
de Lorraine. Mademoiselle reports the fierce talk of the 
people, which made it prudent for her aunt and cousin to 
remain very quiet at the Louvre. She was herself angry 
with them, and told them plainly that they ought to hold 
themselves neutral in the present quarrel, though she ac- 
knowledged, at the same time, that they owed a good deal 
to the Court. Her coldness to Charles after her triumphant 
return made Queen Henrietta say that not only, like the 
famous Maid, had she saved Orleans, but that, like her, she 
was hunting out the English. Everybody found it a duty 
to repeat the sharp saying to Mademoiselle, who was not 
pleased with it. 

Always easily attracted and amused, she took a certain 
fancy to Charles de Lorraine, who had all the eccentric in- 
dividuality of a generation now passing away. He made 
himself very agreeable to her. He stuffed her ears with 
flattery ; he was always bareheaded in her presence ; when 
she left the Luxembourg, where he was staying with Mon- 
sieur and Madame, he handed her to her coach and then 
walked beside it for some distance, his hand on the door. 
He visited her at the Tuileries, drove with her in the Cours, 
entertained her and her ladies with extraordinary and dread- 
ful stories of his campaigns — how his soldiers ate not only 
horses, but men, and boiled down old women into soup ! 

The Duke's object was to avoid all serious conference 
with Monsieur and with Conde until the Etampes affair 
was finally settled with Turenne. If there was any ques- 
tion of committing himself by a direct answer, he began 
to sing and to dance, so that nobody could help laughing. 
When Monsieur invited him into his cabinet to discuss 
affairs with Cardinal de Retz, he said, " Give me a string 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 195 

of beads : priests should pray, and teach people to pray ; 
they have no business to meddle with other things." At 
this point arrived two of his special allies ; Madame de 
Chevreuse and Madame de Montbazon. He seized a guitar. 
" Dance, ladies, dance ! " and " affairs " were banished. 

When the royal army had retired from Etampes, the 
army of the Princes advanced to Saint-Cloud. There it 
spent some June days agreeably enough, the officers amus- 
ing themselves in Paris, while various communications 
tending towards peace, in which Conde took little or no 
part, were carried on with the Court. Meanwhile the war- 
game dragged on. The Marechal de la Ferte threw a bridge 
over the Seine and the royal troops began to cross it on 
July 1st, with the intention of attacking Saint-Cloud. Cond6 
decided at once to move his army round Paris to Charenton, 

On that same evening of the ist of July Mademoiselle 
was walking in the garden of the Tuileries. Arriving at 
the Porte de la Conference, which opened on the fashionable 
drive outside the walls, the Cours-de-la-Reine, she was told 
by the guard that troops were passing. This was not news 
to turn Mademoiselle back ; she went out into the Cours 
and found herself in ^the presence of Condi's vanguard and 
baggage train, slowly making its way round the walls in the 
charge of an anxious officer. From the terrace of the Jardin 
de Renard, close by, where she met Madame de Chatillon 
and other society people. Mademoiselle watched for some 
time the passage of the army. After speaking her mind 
with her usual plainness, and abusing all negotiators, she 
went home to the Tuileries. 

All that night the army was passing by, and Made- 
moiselle, listening at her open window till two in the morn- 
ing, heard not only the trumpets and drums, but the tramp 
of the marching men. She was sad at heart, full of fears for 
the army, and yet with an instinctive feeling that in some 
unforeseen way she might once more be of use. 

At six o'clock her presentiments were justified by the 
arrival of the Comte de Fiesque, bearing a message from 



196 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Monsieur le Prince. He was in difficulties : the royal troops 
had attacked him at dawn ; Paris was closed to him ; he had 
sent to Monsieur, entreating him to mount his horse and 
come to his aid, but Monsieur had replied that he was ill. 
Conde now sent to Mademoiselle, begging her not to forsake 
him. 

He appealed to the right person. Mademoiselle sprang 
from her bed and flew to the Luxembourg, where she found 
Monsieur pacing restlessly at the top of the stairs, and the 
palace full of laughing people, friends of Cardinal de Retz, 
who cared nothing whether Cond6 lived or died. In the 
midst of them the Duchesse de Nemours was sobbing with 
anxiety for her husband and her brother. 

Mademoiselle stormed at her irresolute father. With 
angry tears and reproaches she begged him either to mount 
his horse or to go to bed. She accused him of having a 
treaty in his pocket, of being ready to sacrifice the Prince to 
Cardinal Mazarin. It would have been nothing new for 
Gaston d'Orleans. 

After an hour wasted in furious argument, during which, 
as Mademoiselle bitterly reflected, the Prince and all his 
friends and her own might be dying in battle. Monsieur at 
last consented to send her to the Hotel de Ville, to see what 
the city authorities could or would do. 

As she drove through the streets, accompanied by the Due 
de Rohan, the Duchesse de Nemours, and the two Com- 
tesses de Fiesque, crowds pressed upon the coach and cried 
to her for orders. 

" What shall we do ? You have only to command ; we are 
ready to obey you ! " 

" Messieurs de la Ville " were not quite so ready. The 
Marechal de I'Hopital, Governor of Paris, M. Antoine 
Lefevre, Provost of the Merchants, and the city councillors 
and sheriffs, were solid men, not carried away by enthusiasm, 
even for the hero of Rocroy. They thought more of pre- 
serving Paris than of helping Cond6. They were willing to 
grant Monsieur's requests so far as to send two thousand 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 197 

men to the Prince's rescue and to station four hundred in the 
Place Royale. But as for allowing him and his army to save 
themselves by entering the city, that was quite another 
affair. They looked at each other. 

When Mademoiselle threatened them with the vengeance 
of Mazarin and the royal troops, they replied that if the 
army of the Fronde had kept away from Paris, the royal 
army would have done the same. Mademoiselle had not 
come there to argue such points as this. With a passionate 
gesture, her cause visibly strengthened by the mob that were 
howling for Conde in the Place de Greve, she cried, " Think, 
gentlemen ! While you are disputing, Monsieur le Prince is 
in peril in your faubourgs. Think what eternal grief and 
shame for Paris, should he perish there for want of help ! 
You can help him ; so do it quickly ! " 

The authorities withdrew to consider. In the few minutes' 
pause that followed, a solemn sound of singing rose to 
Mademoiselle's ears through a window that opened into the 
Foundling Hospital of the Saint-Esprit, built against the 
north side of the Hotel de Ville. She knelt down by the 
window to hear the Mass and to pray ; but not so devoutly 
that she did not spring to her feet more than once and 
impatiently demand an answer from the too deliberate men. 
There is even a story that she threatened to tear the Gover- 
nor's beard if he hesitated much longer. 

At length she had her way ; they consented that Monsieur 
le Prince and his army should take refuge within the walls. 
She despatched messengers with the good news, then got into 
her coach again and drove with all speed towards the Porte 
St. Antoine, She hardly yet knew whether she had saved 
Conde. 

Her doubts were justified. The royal troops far out-num- 
bered his — 12,000 men against 5000 — and it had been hard 
work to fight his way through the Faubourgs St. Denis and 
St. Martin to the Faubourg St. Antoine, The Court, by the 
way, was at St. Denis, and the Queen spent all that day on 
her knees before the altar in the Carmelite church there. 



198 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

It was a desperate losing conflict outside the gate of 
St. Antoine. Conde was " like a demon," everywhere at 
once ; he had never shown himself a greater commander. 
His troops were not worthy of him ; but his officers, his 
friends, followed him like paladins of an older time, and died 
by scores with a heroism worthy of a nobler cause. The 
army of Turenne and La Ferte also lost some of its finest 
officers ; and amongst those who fell was young Paul Man- 
cini, the Cardinal's nephew. But sheer force of numbers and 
circumstances would have crushed Conde in the end, if he 
had been much longer pent up between Turenne and the 
closed gates of the city. For some hours of that blazing 
July day, only the wounded and the dead were allowed to 
enter Paris. 

As Mademoiselle drove from the Hotel de Ville, she 
encountered frightful sights in the streets. One after 
another, the victims of the terrible fight passed by. The 
Due de la Rochefoucauld, led by a friend and his young son, 
his white coat dripping with blood from a shocking wound in 
the face which had blinded him for the time; young Guitaut, 
shot through the body, bare-headed, pale as death ; and 
many more whom she knew, some able to speak in answer to 
her eager words, some passing on silently ; and then, borne 
on barrows, ladders, planks, those who would never speak or 
fight again. 

But she had saved Conde. He came from the midst of 
the fight and rested a few minutes at the house where she 
was, close to the Bastille and the Porte St. Antoine. 

" He was in a pitiable state," she says ; " he had two inches 
of dust on his face, his hair was all matted ; his shirt and 
collar were soaked with blood, though he was not wounded ; 
his cuirass was dented all over, and he carried his sword in 
his hand, having lost the scabbard; he gave it to my equerry. 
He said to me, ' You behold a man in despair ; I have lost all 
my friends.' . . ." He counted over their names, while Made- 
moiselle tried to comfort him. He wept bitter tears, and 
begged her to excuse his grief " And they say he cares for 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 199 

no one!" she cries, remembering that tragic scene, during 
which, perhaps, she touched the proudest moment of her 
life. 

But her work was not quite done. Conde returned to the 
battle, leaving the command of the gate and the care of the 
wounded in her hands. He did not mean his entry into 
Paris to be a disgraceful rout ; he would fight his way. The 
world should never reproach him with having fled " en plein 
midi devant les mazarins." 

The ramparts of Paris were lined with bourgeois watching 
the fight, also visible to Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin 
from the heights of Charonne. There was a good deal of 
indifference among the citizens ; unlike the mob in the 
street, they were sick of the Fronde and its disorders, and 
that crowd on the walls held many to whom Conde's defeat, 
even his death, would not have been unwelcome. And even 
after the gates of Paris were open to him, his army was in 
great danger. The fighting went on all through the hot 
afternoon. The wounded and the stragglers kept dropping 
in through the gate, begging for water. Mademoiselle was 
joined by Monsieur, by Madame de Chatillon, and by others 
of her half-hearted party, whose congratulations did not ring 
true. 

For a better view of the battle and its chances. Made- 
moiselle mounted to the towers of the Bastille. A telescope 
showed her the royal coaches on the distant hill ; it also 
showed her certain movements of Turenne's cavalry, which 
was preparing to cut off the Prince's retreat into the city. 
Then Mademoiselle gave the order which, according to 
Cardinal Mazarin, " killed her husband." The cannon of the 
Bastille spoke, thundering against the royal horsemen as 
they galloped towards the gate and sweeping down their 
foremost ranks. Thus finally saved, the army of the Fronde 
marched into Paris. 

" Vous etes notre lib6ratrice ! " the men cried as they 

passed under the window where Mademoiselle was standing. 

Long afterwards she confessed that she looked back on 



200 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

that day with a troubled joy. At the time delight was only 
equalled by astonishment at her own brilliant deeds, though 
the thoughts which kept her awake all that night were not 
so much of her personal glory and Conde's gratitude as of 
" all the poor dead," among whom was her special friend in 
the Orleans expedition, the Marquis de Flamarens. 

The riot at the Hotel de Ville, two days later, was de- 
scribed by Mademoiselle as the coup de massue of the party 
of the Fronde. Once more the cowardly Gaston sent his 
daughter to take his place at a dangerous moment. 

A grand meeting of the Municipality, with deputies from 
the Parliament, was held at the Hotel de Ville. The Princes 
were present in force, though even then Monsieur held back 
and was two hours late. They meant the Assembly to place 
the destinies of Paris and of France formally in their hands. 
The shivering Gaston was to be lieutenant-general of the 
kingdom ; Conde, generalissimo of the forces. The an- 
nounced object was to rescue Louis XIV from the hands of 
Cardinal Mazarin. 

All through the streets, and mingled with the crowds in 
the Place de Greve, were Conde's soldiers. Blue ribbons 
and bunches of straw, the colour and badge of the party, 
were worn by every one who did not wish to be attacked and 
beaten by the canaille as a mazarin. 

Mademoiselle went out driving in the afternoon with a 
bunch of straw tied to her fan. The heat was stifling ; 
storms indeed were in the air. Returning to the Luxem- 
bourg, she met the Princes in a bad temper ; the Assembly 
had gone against them ; instead of trusting them with 
sovereign power, its chief idea was to reconcile Paris with 
the King. Peace, not war, was the desire of Parliament and 
Municipality alike. 

Monsieur, exhausted by the heat, was changing his clothes, 
when a breathless messenger, almost speechless from haste 
and terror, rushed into the palace. He brought with him 
a few words hastily scribbled by Goulas, Monsieur's secre- 
tary, who had stayed behind at the Hotel de Ville, The 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 201 

people were breaking in ; Monsieur was implored to stop 
these horrors and to save the Assembly. He "tapped his 
teeth with his nails," says Conrart, and saw nothing he could 
do. He asked Cond6 to go. The Prince answered with a 
sneer that as for himself, he was a coward, and had no 
experience of dealing with sedition. It was Condi's own 
fault if contemporaries believed that the massacre had been 
incited, if not ordered by him. 

Finally, they sent the Due de Beaufort, whose popularity 
with the mob was still very great ; and shortly afterwards, 
no further news arriving, Mademoiselle herself was allowed 
to go. " L'appetit vient en mangeant," and the Princess, no 
doubt, was quite as much bent on another exciting adventure 
as on saving the Marechal de I'Hopital and M. Lefevre. 

She drove out of the Luxembourg with a large suite of 
officers and ladies, including poor old Madame de Fiesque 
in great fear. Even in the nearer streets they came upon 
dead mazarins^ struck down for want of a straw, and at the 
Pont Notre Dame they met a councillor from the Hotel de 
Ville being carried home dead. His bearers declared that 
the mob had even fired on the Blessed Sacrament, brought 
out by the clergy as a means of stilling the tumult. 

Mademoiselle sent messengers to the Hotel de Ville, but 
they never came back. Driving in the dark and narrow 
streets, her coach wheels got entangled with those of a dead- 
cart which travelled every night from hospital to cemetery. 
It was not easy to escape contact with ghastly protruding 
feet and hands. She listened to the entreaties of her escort 
and returned to the Luxembourg. 

At midnight her father's restless anxiety, not to mention 
her own, sent her out again with a smaller party. Madame 
de Fiesque had wisely gone to bed. The streets were now 
quiet, the night was calm and beautiful ; she reached the 
Place de Greve without difficulty, even amused by the half- 
dressed people who chattered to her by the way. There 
was only one alarming incident. An armed man looked in 
suddenly at her window and asked, "Is the Prince here?" 



202 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

She answered, " No," and he disappeared. When too late to 
stop him, she concluded that he had meant to kill the Prince. 

The Due de Beaufort had quieted the fury of the mob, 
but many mazarins, deputies, citizens, clergy, had been 
massacred, and the Hotel de Ville was much injured by fire. 
Mademoiselle stepped over charred and smoking beams, 
through gaping doorways, into empty halls with burnt 
shutters and window-frames open to the night. The place 
was not yet too safe ; one of the halls was still burning ; 
stray shots terrified her ladies. But she remained there with 
Beaufort for several hours, till the day had dawned and she 
had ascertained that the remaining city magistrates were in 
safety. Then she went out confidently into the still crowded 
Place de Greve. 

" God bless you ! " the people cried. " All that you do is 
well done." So Her Royal Highness went home to the 
Tuileries with a good conscience, and slept soundly all 
through the next day. 

From that fatal 4th of July, public opinion in Paris 
began to turn against Conde, and the downfall of the Fronde 
was now only a matter of weeks. Mademoiselle, seeing 
little except outward triumph, did not realise this at the 
time, but pranced joyously through the rest of the summer, 
playing at soldiers with Conde, who called a regiment by 
her name. His officers almost fought for the honour of 
commanding companies under Mademoiselle. 

All was not pure amusement, however. Some dispute 
about precedence caused a new quarrel between the Dues 
de Beaufort and de Nemours. Their friends. Mademoiselle 
among them, did their best to prevent a duel, but Nemours 
was implacable, though at the very last moment Beaufort 
said to him, " Ah, mon frere, quelle honte ! Forget the 
past ; let us be friends." " Ah, coquin ! " cried Nemours. 
" You shall kill me, or I shall kill you ! " He then attacked 
Beaufort so furiously that he had to fire his pistol in self- 
defence, killing Nemours on the spot. The eight seconds 
rushed into the fray ; two of them died of their wounds. 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 203 

This duel made an immense sensation in society. It was 
fought in the horse-market behind the Hotel de Vendome, 
and among the first persons on the spot was Madame de 
Rambouillet's daughter, the Abbess of Yeres, who knelt to 
pray beside the dead man. She tried to prove that there 
was a moment for repentance before the Duke's spirit 
passed, but the surgeons could not admit it, and some diffi- 
culty was made about giving him Christian burial. Even 
the easy-going Archbishop of Paris would not allow the 
pompous funeral services his friends wished for. This greatly 
embittered the grief of Madame de Nemours, whose true 
affection for both husband and brother had long made her 
life anxious and miserable. 

Another funeral, which ought to have been royal, was 
shorn of its splendour in these August days. Louis XIV 
coldly refused to allow the little Due de Valois, Monsieur's 
only son, to be buried with his ancestors at Saint-Denis. 
The royal letter pointed out that His Majesty's uncle 
should regard the child's death as a direct punishment from 
God for the unjust war he had been waging against His 
Majesty. 

The reproach may have been just, says Mademoiselle, but 
it was not the time to make it. She hurried to the Luxem- 
bourg on hearing that her little brother was dead. She 
found " Monsieur fort penetre de douleur, et Madame qui 
mangeoit un potage." She went to see the dead child in 
his cradle, " beau comme un petit ange." All round the 
priests were praying, or rather praising God. Mademoiselle 
broke down and sobbed so bitterly that her people had to 
lead her away ; yet she saw that the boy was happy in his 
early death. He was backward, delicate, and deformed ; at 
two years old he could neither speak nor walk. 

All this time negotiations for peace were going on, both 
openly and secretly. Paris, not to mention the nation at 
large, was sick and tired of the war. The Princes tried 
separately to make favourable terms for themselves ; the 
great ladies and their intrigues were now mostly on the 



204 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Court side, always excepting Madame de Longueville and 
the Princesse de Conde, who held out long at Bordeaux. 

The Parliament sent deputations ; Cardinal de Retz, at 
the head of a long line of coaches conveying the canons of 
Notre Dame and the cures of Paris, visited the King at 
Compiegne and begged him to return to his city. The wise 
Mazarin made everything easier by taking himself away on 
a journey to the frontier. The King published an amnesty 
for all who would return to their obedience at once and 
unconditionally. 

It seems that the Prince de Conde and Mademoiselle were 
the only two, among the grtdlfrondeurs and frondeuses, not 
ready to submit. He held out for impossible terms ; she, 
proud and single-hearted, was loyal to him and a dying 
cause ; the old cause, the long and now ending struggle of 
the nobles of France against absolute monarchy. Her last 
hopes of winning a crown by force of arms must have been 
dead by this time. And yet she hardly realised what serious, 
almost unpardonable offence she had given at Court. 

The Due de Lorraine had again appeared in Paris, this 
time as Conde's uncompromising ally. But when October 
was beginning, the Court at Saint-Germain, the atmosphere 
of Paris more royalist every day, they determined that it 
was time to lead their troops away to the frontier, where 
they might carry on the war at greater advantage. They 
took a merry farewell of Mademoiselle at the Tuileries, 
assuring her that Monsieur had promised to make the 
King's entry as difficult as possible. For themselves, they 
would do great things in the fine weather that remained, 
and then, their troops in winter quarters, they would come 
back " aux bals et aux comedies." 

Mademoiselle was not ashamed to shed tears when her 
heroes were gone and she was left alone in Paris with her 
disagreeable father. She lingered long on the thought of her 
" grande allee " of the Tuileries, full of splendid men in new 
winter garments, the long-cloaked mourning for her brother 
being ended. Gold, flame-colour, silver and black, with the 



THE WARS OF THE FRONDE 205 

blue scarf of the Fronde over all ; Monsieur le Prince had 
never looked so well. And now he was gone ; they were all 
gone ; the autumn leaves were beginning to fall. Nothing 
was left but ennui and a rising fear of being chassee ! 

A few days later, early in the morning, she received an 
order from the King to leave the Tuileries. He was to enter 
Paris the next day, and had no lodging but this to offer 
Monsieur his brother. Mademoiselle must therefore be gone 
by noon. She hurried to consult her father. He said, " You 
must obey," She then set herself to find a new home in 
Paris, a difficult matter, with the idea of remaining where 
she might still be of some use to her friend Conde. It did 
not at first occur to her that the Luxembourg was her 
natural refuge. 

On Sunday she dined as usual in state, her musicians play- 
ing, though her heart was heavy enough at leaving the 
pleasant palace, her home of twenty-five years. Later she 
watched the King's entry from Madame de Choisy's windows 
on the Place du Louvre. A man passed by, selling paper 
lanterns for the illuminations of the evening. " Lanternes a 
la royale ! " was his cry. The daring Princess leaned from 
the window. "Have you none a la Fronde?'' Madame de 
Choisy exclaimed, " For God's sake ! Do you want me to be 
murdered?" It was a lesson for Mademoiselle, so long the 
adored of that capricious city. 

A report that Monsieur had been ordered out of Paris 
took her again to the Luxembourg. Here the father and 
daughter had a stormy scene. She accused him, not for the 
first time, of making a separate peace with the Court and 
forsaking Conde. He told her to mind her own affairs. She 
asked what was to become of her. He answered that he 
neither knew nor cared ; she had never taken his advice, and 
had done everything possible to set the Court against her. 
" But the fame of having acted the heroine, and saved our 
party twice over, will give you plenty of consolation what- 
ever happens !" 

Mademoiselle defended herself with spirit from these and 



2o6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

more sarcastic reproaches. To be accused of acting the 
heroine was unbearable. 

" I don't know what it is to be a heroine. My birth com- 
pels me to behave always in a high and great manner ; you 
can call that what you please. Myself, I call it following my 
own inclination and taking my own way ; I was born to take 
no other." 

She then asked him to allow her to lodge at the Luxem- 
bourg, as more fitting for her than the neighbourhood of the 
Louvre. He refused. Might she then go to the empty 
Hotel de Conde ? No. 

" Where do you wish me to go then, Monsieur?" 

" Wherever you please." 

The next day Monsieur himself left Paris for Blois at the 
King's command, and Mademoiselle, alone with her ladies, 
in sudden terror of arrest and imprisonment, fled secretly 
away into the depths of the country. 

So ended " that tragi-comedy called the Fronde " ; and 
with it the heroic age of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. 



PART III 

EXILE AND LATER LIFE 
1652-1693 



CHAPTER I 

1652-1657 

"... Dessus ses tours 
Sont niches les vautours, 
Les oiseaux de malheur. 
Helas, ma bonne, helas ! que j'ai grand peur ! " 

THE JACOBIN FRIAR— THE CHATEAU DE SAINT-FARGEAU— MADE- 
MOISELLE'S COURT IN EXILE— THE MARQUISE DE THIANGES— FAMILY 
QUARRELS — THE DUC DE NEUBOURG 

FLYING from an imaginary pursuit, Mademoiselle 
stopped to change horses at a village inn between 
Paris and Pont-sur-Yonne. 

A friar in a white habit was sitting at the kitchen table. 
He had thrown off his black Dominican cloak, and was 
enjoying an hour's rest and refreshment, when his peace was 
disturbed by the sudden entrance of a tall masked woman 
in travelling dress, who asked abruptly to what order he 
belonged and where he came from. The friar at first re- 
sented her curiosity, but something pleasant yet authorita- 
tive in the stranger's tone conquered him. He told her that 
he was a Jacobin, of the convent in the Rue St. Honore, 
on his way back from Nancy. She began by being equally 
frank. She told him she came from Paris, and asked ques- 
tions about the Due de Lorraine and his popularity in his 
own country. He then inquired whether it was true that 
the King was to return to Paris. 

"Yes, indeed," said she. " He arrived there two days ago, 
and Monsieur le Due d'Orleans and Mademoiselle have 
left." 

" Fm sorry to hear it," the friar said. " Monsieur is a 
good fellow. As for Mademoiselle, she is a brave lass. She 
p 209 



2IO A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

would think no more of carrying a pike than of wearing 
a mask. She has plenty of courage. Do you know her?" 

This sounded risky, and the traveller said, " No." 

" What ! " exclaimed the friar. " And you don't know that 
she jumped over the wall at Orleans, and that she saved the 
Prince's life at the Porte St. Antoine ? " 

The lady had heard something of this, but she declared 
that she had never seen Mademoiselle. The friar described 
her to the life. 

" A tall, handsome girl, as tall as you, with a long face and 
a large nose. If you will take off your mask, I'll tell you 
whether you are like her in face as well as in figure." 

The lady excused herself; she had lately had the small- 
pox. She went on asking questions. The friar declared 
that he had seen and spoken to Mademoiselle thousands of 
times, both at the Tuileries and at his convent church, which 
she used to attend with the Queen. They chattered about 
the Court, and about Madame and her lazy ways ; she was 
indeed a contrast to the lively Mademoiselle. 

" But who are you, madame, who ask me so many ques- 
tions?" 

The friar was gravely told that he was speaking to the 
widow of a gentleman of Sologne, who had gone through 
many troubles in the war and was now on her way to her 
brother in Champagne. 

" Well, if you are ever in Paris, come and see us at our 
convent." 

" I am of the Religion," was the cool reply. 

The good friar immediately set to work to convert this 
stray sheep. But she told him the matter was too serious to 
be treated en passant. Controversy must wait, she said, till 
she visited Paris in the winter. 

They parted good friends. The friar had a word of kindly 
sympathy on the fatigues of his journey. History does not 
say whether he ever discovered who the masked Protestant 
widow really was. As to Mademoiselle, she forgot his name, 
but had a vivid memory of the adventure, and wrote it down 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 211 

in detail. It amused her extremely, and cheered her on her 
fugitive way. 

She spent a few anxious days hidden incognito at the 
Chateau de Pont, with her loyal old friend Madame Bouthil- 
lier. The Court took no notice of her. Mazarin was too 
wise to insist on any punishment beyond distance and cold- 
ness, hard enough for the first Princess of the blood royal. 
Conde and Lorraine found means to reach her with affec- 
tionate letters. Duke Charles wished her to retire to a 
chateau on the frontier where he could frequently visit her ; 
the Prince offered her his life and his army, and advised her 
to fortify herself at Honfleur with M. de Longueville and 
the nobles of Normandy, promising to send succours from 
Ostend. He added that in case of extremity she could 
escape by sea. 

But Mademoiselle was not quite so mad as these heroes 
thought. She excused herself from the Honfleur plan by 
her horror of the sea; but really she did not wish to remain 
in a state of open war with Louis XIV. Her father, safe at 
Blois, sent definite commands that she should retire to one 
of her own estates. She decided on Saint-Fargeau, an old 
Montpensier chateau in the valley of the Loing. It was 
three days' journey from Paris, the same from Blois, and four 
days from Stenay, where Conde was likely to spend the 
winter. When the news of her decision reached the King, 
he wrote stiffly but kindly to announce his approval and 
to assure his cousin of safety and liberty. In thanking His 
Majesty, Mademoiselle dwelt upon her happy possession of a 
clear conscience. Her devotion to his service left her noth- 
ing to fear, she said. She was incapable of doing anything 
unworthy of a loyal Frenchwoman and of the position to 
which God had called her. 

This serenity of mind did not make the journey to Saint- 
Fargeau less uncomfortable and alarming. The country was 
full of roving bands of armed men, who were supposed to be 
collecting taxes. Some of them had already shown their 
true character by attacking one of Mademoiselle's coaches 



212 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

as it followed her from Paris, and stealing horses, money, 
and M. de Prefontaine's clothes. Luckily they left behind 
what Mademoiselle valued more, her boxes of papers, con- 
taining a manuscript of her own. La Vie de Madame de 
Fouguerolles, and Madame de Frontenac's Royaume de la 
Lune. On this occasion and many more, his mistress's lack 
of a sense of proportion made Prefontaine angry. 

" We arrived at Saint-Fargeau at two o'clock in the 
morning," writes Mademoiselle, " and had to dismount out- 
side, the bridge being broken. I entered an old house with- 
out doors or windows, grass knee-deep in the courtyard ; I 
was horrified. They led me into a miserable room, supported 
by a beam in the middle. My terror and vexation were so 
great that I began to cry." 

The Chateau de Saint-Fargeau lacked other things besides 
security. It had no furniture. Mademoiselle's baggage 
train, sent off without haste from Paris by old Madame de 
Fiesque, did not arrive for some days, and in the meanwhile 
she and her ladies had no beds to sleep in. Weary with her 
journey, she mounted her horse and rode five miles across 
country to the moated house of Dannery, inhabited by one 
Davaux, a steward of her estate. Here she stayed several 
days, and here one night she had a curious little experience. 

Madame de Frontenac was sleeping in the same room, in 
a bed close by. Mademoiselle woke with a start to hear 
the curtains of this bed drawn sharply backwards and 
forwards. 

" Are you dreaming," she called out, " to open your curtains 
at this time ? " 

" It was the wind," said Madame de Frontenac. 

But there was no wind. Again came the sharp rattle of 
the curtain. In the dim light of the room, Madame de 
Frontenac herself saw it move, and very gladly, at Made- 
moiselle's call, she crept across to share her bed. When 
daylight came and they found courage to talk, no explana- 
tion seemed possible. A few days later Mademoiselle heard 
that a young soldier in her company, who was her foster- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 213 

brother, had been killed on the frontier at that very time. 
She then felt sure he had come to bid her farewell, and had 
miasses said for the repose of his soul. 

Ruins and ghosts in the solitude of a remote country, 
wild forest-land up to her very walls, profound stillness, 
only broken by voices and church bells from the neighbouring 
village, or by the autumn wind sighing, frogs croaking, owls 
hooting and squeaking, wolves beginning to howl in the 
long nights as winter hunger seized them — the scene and 
atmosphere of Mademoiselle's exile were not encouraging. 
There could not have been a greater change from the fight- 
ing adventures of the last few years, or from the gay 
splendour of the Tuileries. So much the more credit to Her 
Royal Highness for the spirited way in which, after the first 
few days, she began to make the best of things. 

Finding that she was not likely to be attacked or dis- 
turbed in her solitude, she set to work to improve the old 
moated castle, her home for the next five years. Part of 
it dated from the earliest French kings ; it had been built in 
its present form by the famous Jacques Coeur in the fifteenth 
century. After his fall it was bought by Antoine de Cha- 
bannes, Grand Master of France, from whom Mademoiselle 
was descended through her great-grandmother, Renee, 
Duchesse de Montpensier. Since the last Duke's death it 
had been deserted, except when Monsieur, as guardian of 
his daughter's estates, had allowed the old Due de Belle- 
garde to live there during his years of exile under Cardinal 
de Richelieu. 

The ponderous mediaeval towers of Saint-Fargeau, with 
their quaint pepper-box turrets, were built of dark red brick 
and stone. A modern traveller describes them as " rosy in 
sunshine, purplish in shadow, tapestried with moss and ivy." 
Mademoiselle's actual rebuilding and restoration has left 
more traces, it seems, in the seventeenth -century architec- 
ture of the inner courtyard, with its stately high windows 
and archways and broad flights of steps. Her Parisian 
architect Le Vau, with his army of builders, was at work 



214 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

there for years. She spent two hundred thousand francs on 
Saint-Fargeau. 

The wild surroundings of the house, all long grass, brush- 
wood, and briars, very soon gave way to civilisation. By 
dint of cutting down, rooting up, and levelling. Mademoiselle 
made an alley and a long terrace — " with a very fine effect. 
For from this terrace," she writes, " one can see castle and 
village, woods, vineyards, a meadow with a river, which in 
summer is a lake. Not an unpleasant landscape." 

The chateau was hardly comfortable while all these works 
were going on. For many months Mademoiselle lived in a 
garret, and her household and visitors lived where they 
could. But the mistress of the house set the tune of life 
there, and it was a gay tune of energy, high spirit, scorn of 
small discomforts, love of sports and games, with a real 
interest too in the ideas and the literary fashions of the day. 
There was no languor and no boredom at Saint-Fargeau. 

Mademoiselle occupied herself from morning till night. 
She overlooked her workmen, she stitched away at her 
tapestry while romances were read to her, she wrote to the 
Prince de Conde by every mail, she kept an account of her 
weekly expenses, she finished the manuscripts she had 
brought with her and began more, as well as writing a large 
part of her famous Memoirs. She gave much thought and 
time to arranging a picture gallery with portraits of all her 
relations — Bourbon, Stuart, Montpensier, Guise — among 
whom her grandfather M. de Montpensier took the chief 
place as " master of the house." 

When the winter roads were too muddy for driving, Made- 
moiselle went out riding ; when they were a sheet of ice, 
she went out walking. Her greyhounds, " La Reine " and 
" Madame Souris," were always with her. She sent for a 
pack of hounds from England. " I took to hunting three 
times a week, which amused me much. The country about 
Saint-Fargeau is very good for hunting, and suits English 
dogs, who generally go too fast for women. This country 
being woody, I was able to follow them everywhere." 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 215 

She very soon arranged a theatre in her great hall, and 
hired a travelling troupe of actors. The indispensable 
coinedie had never seemed more delightful, though the audi- 
ence sat shivering, cloaked and capped with furs. When 
Lent brought this diversion to an end, they played battle- 
dore and shuttlecock for four hours every day. Mademoiselle 
loved violent exercise. Dancing too was a necessity, and 
she sent for her band of violins. 

In summer, like a princess of romance, she led her little 
Court through the woods ; they dined on green grass by the 
river's bank with music playing, and discussed literature^ 
the passion of love, human nature, and metaphysics. With 
eager arguments they enjoyed the books of the moment, the 
novels of Mademoiselle de Scudery or M. de la Calprenede, 
where they saw their own society mirrored in " Greek, 
Persian, or Indian " disguises. 

On the whole — to quote Madame Arvede Barine with her 
untranslatable charm — " il n'y eut pas de cour plus leste et 
plus fringante, plus allante et plus caracolante." And Made- 
moiselle's string of courtly visitors, during these years of 
disgrace, is a witness both to her real popularity and to the 
respect felt for her personal character. Saint-Fargeau was 
not easy to reach, and the party of the Fronde lay at Mazarin's 
mercy. The Parliament had been effectually silenced, Retz 
was in prison, Conde was fighting his last losing battles ; 
Louis XIV, a handsome boy with a whip, was teaching the 
nobles that the one authority in France was his own. He 
was crowned at Reims in June, 1654, and though Made- 
moiselle pretends to care nothing about it, she was certainly 
sorry not to be in her right place on that occasion. The 
King's triumph over society was not yet complete, however, 
and it persisted in paying court to his rebellious cousin in 
her exile. 

Among Mademoiselle's visitors at Saint-Fargeau were the 
Dues de Beaufort and de Candale — brother of Mademoiselle 
d'Epernon — the Duchesse de Sully, the Comte and Comtesse 
de Bethune — 'those faithful friends whom she had visited as 



2i6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

a child in Touraine — the Marquises de Montglat, de Lavardin, 
and de Sevigne. The last was of Mademoiselle's own age, 
a charming young widow with a crowd of lovers, yet of 
whom scandal could find nothing to say; agreeable, coquettish, 
piquante, good-hearted, and natural ; a fascinating talker in 
these days, long before her inimitable correspondence began. 

The Comtesse de Maure, with all her oddities, was always 
a welcome guest. She brought with her a clever and attrac- 
tive little niece, Mademoiselle de Vandy, of an ancient 
family in Lorraine. Mademoiselle took an immense fancy 
to this girl, who paid her several long visits. With the 
Mesdemoiselles d'Haucourt, who were brought to Saint- 
Fargeau by the Duchesse de Ventadour, and of whom Made- 
moiselle also declares herself " entetee," Mademoiselle de 
Vandy was mixed up in some of the domestic worries caused 
by the frivolous jealousies and discontents of Madame de 
Frontenac and Madame de Fiesque the younger — Gillonne 
d'Harcourt, called Amaryllis in the portraits of the time. 
The two disloyal marechales de camp, who after the death of 
the elder Madame de Fiesque in 1653 gave their royal 
mistress more trouble and vexation than their service 
appears to have been worth, did their best to spoil the 
"douce vie" of Saint- Fargeau by making mischief between 
Mademoiselle and her guests. They led the Mesdemoiselles 
d'Haucourt so far astray as to teach them to laugh at their 
hostess. She declares that if she asked them what they 
were laughing at, they laughed the more. "Not a very 
respectful proceeding," says Mademoiselle ; but her good- 
nature soon forgave the foolish girls. Mademoiselle de 
Vandy, a discreet little person, was not so easily corrupted. 

" The Comtesses seem to think," said Madame de Maure, 
" that Mademoiselle de Vandy came from Paris on purpose 
to say rude things to Henry the Fourth's granddaughter in 
her own house ! " 

Mademoiselle de Vandy was called prudish by the livelier 
characters of her own day, and the life of intelligent laziness 
which suited her, with a certain air of superiority, would not 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 217 

have seemed likely to recommend her to Mademoiselle. But 
the Princess was quite clever enough to appreciate real dis- 
tinction, and to know that Mademoiselle de Vandy was 
right, though her little airs might be amusing, in standing 
rather aloof from the wilder society of Saint - Fargeau. 
Mademoiselle de Vandy became Mademoiselle's confidential 
friend and lady-in-waiting, and will be remembered as the 
heroine of her gay little sketch. La Princesse de Paphlagonie. 
According to Mademoiselle, she was first thus named by 
Mademoiselle de Scudery, who met her constantly in the 
literary circle of Madame de Maure. 

Another and a very different person who visited Made- 
moiselle at Saint-Fargeau was Gabrielle de Rochechouart- 
Mortemart, eldest sister of the young beauty who was after- 
wards Marquise de Montespan, and lately married to the 
Marquis de Thianges. She was handsome, haughty, and 
wild, brilliant too with the far-famed esprit des Mortemart. 
Mademoiselle had known her always, but never so well as 
in the winter months she spent at Saint-Fargeau, her hus- 
band being away at the wars. She was not a peaceful 
inmate, and encouraged les comtesses in their annoying ways 
from sheer mischief 

" She led the most amusing life at Saint-Fargeau," says 
Mademoiselle. " She never got up till they told her I was 
ready for dinner. She came to dinner half dressed and dis- 
hevelled. She said, ' I don't care if I am seen like this by 
Mademoiselle's visitors ; people who are good for anything 
will put it down to favour ; fools will think I am mad, and 
I don't care if they do.' And well they might, for I had 
to send for her twenty times, and all the pages and footmen 
in the house were running after her, sometimes three or four 
pages carrying her train ; and she laughing at it all. As 
she liked sitting up at night, after I was gone to bed (which 
was not early, for she sometimes kept me up till two), she 
used to go to her room and play games with her women, or 
even with my pages and valets, till four or five in the morn- 
ing. . . . She used to tell us all these doings as if they 



2i8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

were the finest in the world, and Mademoiselle de Vandy's 
proper little grimaces made me laugh." 

Mademoiselle de Vandy felt a certain responsibility for 
the Marquise, who was connected with her, being niece to 
her aunt's husband, the Comte de Maure. 

And these were not the most startling scenes. Saint- 
Fargeau had a lively carnival that winter. The Chevalier 
de Charny, Mademoiselle's half-brother, was there, a smart 
young officer of eighteen or twenty ; and another favourite 
and proteg6 of hers, the Chevalier de Bethune, second son 
of her old friends, for whom she had bought a company. 
Besides other gentlemen, there was M. de Vandy, the famous 
soldier, Mademoiselle de Vandy's brother, who offered Made- 
moiselle twenty captains of carabins to give a bad time to 
anybody she chose to point out ! A polite offer hardly to 
be accepted in detail, she thought, though enemies were not 
lacking. 

On Shrove Tuesday the Chevalier de Charny invited all 
the gentlemen to supper in his room, and Mademoiselle, 
after she and the ladies had supped, proposed to Madame de 
Thianges that they should look in on the party. They were 
joyfully welcomed. The young men began to drink her 
health and that of all her faithful servants, with a watery 
death to all traitors, 

" Madame de Thianges said to the Chevalier de Bethune, 
' You must drink your wine pure.' He answered, ' I will 
try, for the love of Mademoiselle.' For he is a very sober 
fellow. When his wineglass was brought, Madame de 
Thianges dashed it in his face ; all his hair was soaked with 
wine ; which vexed him, being clean and tidy. He was 
almost in a rage ; but the civility owing to ladies restrained 
him. Fearing what she might do next, I left the room." 

Madame de Thianges had not yet done with her victim. 
The young men came down to Mademoiselle's room, and 
while she was strolling in the gallery with M. de Monde- 
vergue, a visitor from the Court, Madame de Thianges 
amused herself and the rest with games and talking. Some- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 219 

thing the Chevalier de Bethune said irritated her afresh. 
Screaming with rage, she rushed into the gallery to demand 
justice from Mademoiselle. Throats must be cut, she said, if 
the insolent Chevalier would not ask her pardon. Made- 
moiselle begged her to go to her room, which she did, in a 
terrible passion. 

In the meanwhile there were high words between the 
unlucky Bethune, always known for his gentleness and 
courtesy, and another of the guests. Mademoiselle's first 
task was the reconciling of these two with the help of M. de 
Vandy, new to the task of a peacemaker. Then she led 
young Bethune to make his apology to Madame de Thianges. 
One of her occasional " acces de devotion " had seized the 
lady — in plain prose, she had recovered her temper — and she 
declared herself ready to " sacrifice her resentment to God." 
It was high time. Mademoiselle thought, for the morning of 
Ash Wednesday had dawned ; Mass had to be attended, with 
the sprinkling of ashes to quench the blaze in silly pates like 
these. 

Mademoiselle's household and her visitors were a trouble- 
some team for any woman to drive, and with all her courage 
and spirit the years at Saint-Fargeau were by no means 
altogether happy. Her difficulties with her ladies were 
increased by the frequent presence of Madame de Frontenac's 
husband, an eccentric, violent, wrong-headed person, who was 
capable of doing a great deal of mischief in Mademoiselle's 
affairs, though his wife, who had married him for love, had 
come to dislike him heartily. This couple made the text of 
many sermons against love which Mademoiselle preached 
during these years. 

But the foundation of all her annoyances was the constant 
disagreement with her father which arose out of his unfair 
management of her estates. Monsieur had never been a 
faithful guardian. His first consideration was not the interest 
of Mademoiselle, but that of her half-sisters, whose possible 
fortunes he had long since gambled away. Mademoiselle 
was not the woman to endure fleecing patiently. Though 



220 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

generous, she was just ; and she had a keen conviction of the 
rights of property. She owed a clear understanding of her 
own affairs to her honest and intelligent steward, Prefon- 
taine, and she flatly refused, by his advice, to sign documents 
which would have removed a large part of her fortune from 
her own control. The money disputes between her and Mon- 
sieur were at last referred to the arbitration of Madame de 
Guise, her grandmother, equally interested in the Houses of 
Montpensier and Lorraine. Her decision was confirmed by 
the Royal Council, and Mademoiselle was obliged to accept it, 
though it seemed to her unjust. She could not forgive her 
grandmother, who died soon afterwards. But her old love 
and admiration for Monsieur still existed, and the charm 
of his presence never quite lost its power. 

He did his best to kill her affection. There is nothing 
more curious in the social life of the time than the absolute 
personal authority of parents over their children. To a 
certain extent, the law protected Mademoiselle's possessions 
from her father's dishonesty ; but he could tyrannise over 
her daily life as he chose. His power of appointing or dis- 
missing her people was an excuse for the insolence of a 
Frontenac or a Fiesque ; they knew she could not easily get 
rid of them. Monsieur took his revenge on Prefontaine, 
whose devotion to Mademoiselle's interest had given him 
some trouble, by abruptly dismissing him from her service, 
with other honest men whom he had employed. Made- 
moiselle stormed and raged and entreated, all to no purpose; 
Prefontaine had to leave her. Profiting by his instructions, 
she took the management of her estates into her own hands, 
and carried it on successfully with the help of a good secre- 
tary, Guilloire by name. He remained with her till the 
Lauzun affair made a final breach between her and several 
of her old and faithful servants. 

Mademoiselle tells a story which throws a pleasant light 
on Prefontaine's character. In order to give him the means 
of living, she wished to buy him an appointment as -tnaitre 
des comptes. She sent him a signed draft to fill up for him- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 221 

self with the required sum. This most disinterested of men 
tore up the paper and sent it back, humbly begging that she 
would never do such a rash thing again. He declined to 
accept the twenty thousand crowns she wished to give him, 
declaring that he had not served her long or well enough to 
deserve it, and that in present difficulties she would want all 
the money she could lay hands on. 

The quarrel between Mademoiselle and her father was not 
entirely concerned with money matters. Having, for his 
own part, shaken off his old friends of the Fronde and 
settled down at Blois into a somewhat obscure and dismal 
loyalty, it made him furious to know that his daughter kept 
up a lively correspondence with the Prince de Conde, still a 
rebel on the frontier. Mademoiselle, with no fear of conse- 
quences, even received and hid Conde's messengers. The 
mystery of a certain Saler, whom she kept for some days at 
Saint-Fargeau unknown even to her own household, gave rise 
to various legends as to a secret guest of hers, which appar- 
ently exist to this day. Gaston feared nothing so much as 
to be dragged into any new conspiracies, especially as there 
was some talk of the marriage of his second daughter, 
Mademoiselle d'Orleans, with the King. 

It seems that at the height of his quarrel with Made- 
moiselle he did not spare threats of prisons and convents. 
And one day, according to her, his secretary Goulas said to 
him, " But, monseigneur, the Romans had the power of life 
and death over their children. Are you not great prince 
enough to do as you please with Mademoiselle?" "One 
would have thought," she says, " that His Royal Highness 
would have had him thrown out of the window. But he 
contented himself with saying nothing, which did not please 
me ; for in my melancholy reveries I reflected that he had 
not answered Goulas, and that he was the son of a Medicis. 
And though the Queen, my grandmother, was a very good 
woman, with none of the faults of her race and her nation, 
diseases sometimes pass over a generation without our know- 
ledge." 



222 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Then again she reflected that only the Medicis poison in 
her own veins could have suggested such thoughts. And 
finally she tried to console herself with the flattering con- 
viction that she was a thorough Bourbon, and therefore by 
nature good. And she ended by thanking God's providence 
for the health and sanity which helped her to rise above her 
unhappy circumstances. 

During these years Mademoiselle had a characteristic pro- 
posal of marriage from the Due de Neubourg, who sent a 
letter with his portrait to Saint-Fargeau by the hands of 
a Jesuit father, not the most diplomatic of envoys. Made- 
moiselle gives an amusing account of the interview. 

" He is the best man in the world," said the Jesuit. " You 
will be only too happy with him. His wife, who was a sister 
of the King of Poland, died of joy at seeing him on his 
return from a journey." 

Mademoiselle replied, " You alarm me. I should be 
afraid to die of loving him too much. Therefore I will not 
marry him." 

To Monsieur, who addressed her formally on the subject 
of the Neubourg marriage, she gave a cold and haughty 
answer. His absence from the Court, she said, must have 
made him forget both her position and his own. Otherwise, 
he could never have thought of marrying her to a small 
German prince. 



CHAPTER II 
1653-1657 

*' Are not these woods 
More free from peril than the envious Court ? " 

JOURNEYS IN TOURAINE — THE RESTORATION OF CHAMPIGNY — 
FORGES- LES-EAUX — A VISIT FROM MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE — A PRAC- 
TICAL JOKE— -THE PRINCESS OF ORANGE — QUEEN CHRISTINA OF 
SWEDEN 

THOUGH Mademoiselle was banished from the Court 
and from Paris during those five years, she was free 
to move about elsewhere in France as she pleased. She 
paid several rather stiff visits to Monsieur and Madame, at 
Blois and at Orleans, both before and after the affair of the 
comptes de tutelle. She always delighted in the smiling land- 
scape, the sunny sweetness of the country of the Loire, and 
she writes with keen enjoyment of a journey in Touraine in 
the summer of 1653. 

The Marquis de Sourdis, her old friend of Orleans, was 
now governor of Amboise, and he received her with such 
thunders of cannon as she had never heard before. " He 
treated me very magnificently," she says — probably with 
more packets of his famous confitures. The next day she 
dined at Chenonceaux with the Due de Beaufort, who enter- 
tained her just as splendidly as in old days. She lingered 
at Tours, and exchanged visits with Madame de Montbazon, 
banished to her chateau of Couzieres. Here the famous 
beauty died tragically of suppressed smallpox in the spring 
of 1657, after only six hours' illness. 

All the magnates of Touraine visited Mademoiselle at 
Tours, where she was lodged in the Archbishop's palace, 
and they all invited her to their various country-houses. 

223 



224 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

She went to Valen^ay, then in course of being splendidly- 
rebuilt, and found herself in an enchanted palace of beautiful 
arcades and galleries, full of the gayest company. She once 
more visited M. and Madame de Bethune at Selles, and 
enjoyed the collection of historical curiosities which had 
interested her even as a child, when old Philippe de Bethune, 
her grandfather's friend, had shown them to her. He was 
now dead ; but the house was full of wonderful portraits and 
manuscripts, and Mademoiselle found herself so well enter- 
tained by these, and by reading King Henry's letters, that 
she would willingly have stayed more days than one. 

She had other objects of interest in Tours and the neigh- 
bouring country. It was on this occasion that she adopted 
young Louis, son of Gaston, commonly known as le Mignon, 
gave him the more manly name of Chevalier de Charny, and 
carried him off to a better education than he could have 
among the bourgeois of Tours. She visited Saumur, where 
she was again received with salvos of artillery. " I was not - 
treated like a demoiselle in banishment," she says with satis- 
faction. At Fontevrault, Madame Jeanne-Baptiste de Bour- 
bon, whose long reign was not yet near its end, welcomed 
her niece with joy and affection. History does not say 
whether the poor dancing lunatic of sixteen years before 
still lived to amuse Mademoiselle. 

She visited an estate of her own, Chatellerault, with a 
half-ruined castle where she did not care to stay. Her heart 
was still with the lost Champigny ; once again kneeling in 
the chapel where the old Montpensiers lay, and thinking 
tenderly of all who were gone, she felt herself inspired to 
rescue the place from the alien hands into which it had 
fallen. 

It is pleasant to know that her suit for the recovery of 
Champigny, begun this year in the Paris courts, came to a 
happy end a few years later. She succeeded triumphantly. 
The Due de Richelieu had to restore Champigny, receiving 
back Bois-le-Vicomte, which the Cardinal had forcibly ex- 
changed for it. It was further ordered that the Due should 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 225 

either rebuild the chateau, pulled down by the Cardinal, or 
pay for its being rebuilt ; officials being sent by the courts to 
value the destroyed buildings and devastated woods. The 
latter plan was decided on, and Mademoiselle received a 
much larger sum than anybody expected — no less than 
550,000 livres. She revisited Champigny as its owner in 
the autumn of 1657, soon after her reconciliation with the 
Court. 

" Their joy at seeing me was inexpressible," she writes. 
"... All the nobility of the neighbourhood met me in arms ; 
even the clergy came singing, and hautboys and bagpipes 
played the dances of Poitou ; it was all comical enough." 

She lodged for some weeks in what remained of the old 
chateau, spending the time in most practical fashion with her 
men of business, builders and foresters, and not without 
some annoyance from impertinent hangers-on of the Richelieu 
family. She was only driven away by winter and bad 
weather, and narrowly escaped floods which made the roads 
impassable. A few hours after she had crossed the Indre at 
Azay-le-Rideau the bridge was under water. 

Saint-Fargeau, though pleasant enough in summer, seems 
to have been in those days an unhealthy winter residence. 
People concerned themselves little about these things in the 
seventeenth century, but moats and ponds, miles of thickly 
wooded and undrained country, the damp walls, the shiver- 
ing chills of a house so long neglected — all this was not 
without its effect even on a hardy woman like Mademoiselle. 
She was troubled with bad headaches and sore throats ; and 
the feverish attacks to which she had always been subject 
became more violent. Evidently, too, the worries of life 
affected her nerves. 

She consulted two great men of the Paris Faculty, 
Doctors Guenaut and Brayer. They did not find much 
the matter ; in fact, they assured her she would live a 
hundred years. But they wisely recommended the tonic 
waters of Forges, and thus provided Mademoiselle with just 
the distraction she wanted. Forges, growing every day 
Q 



226 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

more fashionable, was a favourite resort of hers for the rest 
of her life. 

Forges-Ies-Eaux, now a little-known watering-place in 
Eastern Normandy, in the old Pays de Bray, has a witness 
to its history in the names of its three springs — La Reinette,. 
La Royale, and La Cardinale. In the Middle Ages, as one 
might suppose, there were ironworks at Forges. The whole- 
some digestive properties of its water were only discovered 
late in the sixteenth century. Valois courtiers and Norman 
magnates went there to be cured, and even the dangers of 
travelling in a very wild tract of country and in times of 
civil war did not keep invalids away. The Due de Longue- 
ville, governor of Normandy, encouraged the growth of the 
place ; doctors wrote about it ; Jacques Cousinot, physician 
to Louis XIII, sent his royal master there. Queen Anne 
and Cardinal de Richelieu followed the King. The fame of 
Forges was made. " L'elite de la France s'y rendit en foule," 
says M. Bouquet, and this popularity lasted all through the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

Mademoiselle first visited Forges in the summer of 1656. 
She came from Saint-Fargeau by way of Fontainebleau and 
the Forest of Saint-Germain, with a grand equipage and train 
of coaches and baggage mules. For the first time since her 
exile from Paris she had a distant view of her beloved city. 

After sleeping at Pontoise and crossing a ferry at Conflans 
— the bridge having been broken in the wars — she dined at 
Serifontaine, and gave herself four hours to reach Forges 
through the forest. Plunging through wild and narrow 
tracks, by farm lanes, past lonely windmills, across stretches 
of heathery moor, her people lost their way, and Made- 
moiselle, without much enjoyment, watched sunset and 
moonrise in that silent world of woods. After twelve 
hours, at four o'clock in the morning, the barking of dogs 
welcomed her cavalcade to Forges. She heard Mass in the 
village church, walked round by the fountain, where a few 
early gazers were already watching for her, tasted the water, 
not impossibly nasty, and went to bed. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 227 

A little court soon gathered round Mademoiselle at 
Forges, and she found her cure very agreeable. The day, 
from six to nine, seemed hardly long enough for all she had 
to do. She was among the earliest and most sociable of the 
crowd of invalids who appeared at the springs in the first 
freshness of the morning. They all made acquaintance with 
each other, chattering without formality. Mademoiselle 
enjoyed herself all the more because Madame de Frontenac 
did not drink the waters and Madame de Fiesque was lazy. 
She could not resist telling her " griefs," on this subject of her 
disagreeable household, to two pleasant men, M. de Berville 
and M. de Brays, whom she met in these early water-drink- 
ing strolls. Brays was an old soldier, Berville a diplomatist. 
They both listened and sympathised cordially. Made- 
moiselle, always human and natural, was aware that prin- 
cesses did not usually confide their affairs to gentlemen they 
had never seen before. She said as much to Berville and 
Brays, adding, " But it seems to me that honest men are 
one's best friends, wherever one may meet them ; and one 
rarely meets them at all." 

She spent the mornings strolling in the garden of the 
Capuchin Convent, which was arranged with sheltered alleys 
and summer-houses for the comfort of invalids. She was 
exceedingly amused by the company to be seen there : 
" monks, nuns, priests, Huguenot ministers, people of all 
lands and all professions — a diverting diversity," says Made- 
moiselle. All the persons of quality in Normandy came to 
pay her their respects ; ladies from Rouen and deputies from 
its Parliament. 

After walking and attending Mass, it was necessary to 
change one's dress. Furs and woollens, even in the dog- 
days, were worn at Forges in the morning ; it was chilly 
work swallowing so much water. But people dressed in 
silks for their dinner at noon, when Mademoiselle, for one, 
found herself ravenously hungry. After dinner she received 
visitors ; at three o'clock a troupe of comedians from Rouen, 
engaged by her, amused the company. Supper was at six ; 



228 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

then again the garden of the Capuchins, and litanies in their 
church. At nine o'clock everybody went to bed. 

The visitor who interested Mademoiselle the most during 
her stay at Forges was her ancient aversion, the Duchesse 
de Longueville. That heroine of romance was a changed 
creature ; her wild oats all sown, her fighting days over. 
For her brother's sake, she had kept the flame of civil war 
alight in the south many months after the King's triumph 
at Paris over the Fronde, It was not till the summer of 
1653 that the Bordeaux rebellion, known as VOrmee, came 
to its end, and that Madame de Longueville made her sub- 
mission to the King. Later still, after some months spent 
with her saintly aunt, Madame de Montmorency, at the 
Convent of the Visitation at Moulins, she returned to her 
forgiving husband. She was now living with him in Nor- 
mandy, convinced, at thirty-seven, of the nothingness of 
earthly glory and the falseness of men. La Rochefou- 
cauld, as a lover, had behaved with the meanness of a gentle- 
man too cynical to believe in chivalry. Conti, her devoted 
younger brother, had secured his own fortunes by marrying 
Anne-Marie Martinozzi, niece of the now mighty Cardinal. 

Madame de Longueville, as all her biographers tell us, 
had lost none of her old charm. She had still her lovely 
pearl-like complexion, her angelic gentleness of manner, and 
this no longer veiled either a languid scorn of her fellow- 
creatures or a passionate need of any kind of excitement. 
She had always a cultivated mind, and in her new turn 
towards religion and self-denial had lost neither tact nor 
brilliancy. 

The two princesses who met at Forges were in many ways 
as great a contrast as they had ever been, but hfe had 
taught them both some lessons. Madame de Longueville, 
more complex and more critical, may not have shared her 
cousin's feelings of frank joy and delight at their meeting ; 
but if not, she dissembled very well. Mademoiselle, down- 
right and single-minded, was perfectly satisfied. " She was 
as friendly as she could be," she writes ; " and as she is the 




THE DUCHESSE DE LONGUEVILLE 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE ±2g 

most lovable person in the world, it is easy to love her. We 
talked of Monsieur her brother, then of my wretched affair 
with His Royal Highness, and of the conduct of those 
women, which she highly disapproved. She made me con- 
fess that I had been wrong to judge her unfavourably and to 
write a thousand disagreeable things about her to M. her 
brother. I asked her pardon." 

In consequence of this new understanding, Madame de 
Fiesque found herself ill received when she complained to 
Madame de Longueville of Mademoiselle's various faults. 
The Duchess was both grieved and astonished, and spoke 
her mind to the lady-in-waiting with a plainness which dis- 
pleased her. She had a certain authority, the Comte de 
Fiesque belonging to the Prince de Conde's household in 
Flanders. 

Both before and after this visit to Forges, Mademoiselle 
had interviews which amused her. At Corbeil, where she 
stayed two days on her journey, a crowd of people visited 
her, among them the young Duke of York, the Due de Guise 
and his sister, and the Princesse de Lixein, elder sister of 
Madame. 

Many years before, known as Princesse de Phalsbourg, and 
adored by the unlucky Puylaurens, this lady had been the 
chief instrument in the marriage of Gaston and Marguerite. 
She was now a woman of fifty. Mademoiselle, who had 
heard of her wonderful beauty, was disappointed to find her 
"almost frightful." She was exceedingly polite, however, 
and set out with Mademoiselle and her other visitors to 
lunch with a royal official, M. Esselin, at Essonne, close to 
Corbeil. As they passed through the gardens an accident 
happened ; it sounds like one of the practical jokes which 
French society used to tolerate. Mademoiselle was walking 
in advance with her uncle, the Due de Guise, and they were 
passing through a grotto on the way, when without any 
warning fountains of water started suddenly up from the 
pavement, drenching the courtly crowd that followed them. 
Everybody fled in a panic. Poor Madame de Lixein fell 



230 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

down, and everybody else tumbled over her. When Made- 
moiselle saw her again, she was a terrible spectacle : her face 
covered with mud, her dress torn to ribbons — " enfin decon- 
certee de la plus plaisante maniere du monde, et je ne m'en 
puis souvenir sans rire. Je lui ris au nez," says the heartless 
Princess. Luckily Madame de Lixein had good breeding 
and good temper enough to treat the thing as a joke. She 
was quite ready to laugh at herself, and so has earned the 
reward of being handed down to us as a " personne d'esprit." 

At Chilly, near Corbeil, where there was a splendid 
chateau built by the Marquis d'Effiat in Louis XIII's reign, 
Mademoiselle received a visit from her aunt, the Queen of 
England. Henrietta was accompanied by a large suite and 
by three of her children ; Mary, the widowed Princess of 
Orange, the Duke of York, and Princess Henrietta, the 
future Madame, now a thin but pretty child of twelve years 
old. The Queen's object in this meeting was to present her 
eldest daughter to her cousin, Mademoiselle, who had never 
yet seen her. 

If we are to judge by her portraits, the mother of William 
III was the least attractive of Charles I's children. A showy- 
looking woman, she quite lacked the delicate piquancy of 
Henrietta. The good taste and artistic feeling that belonged 
to her family is not shown in her portraits. At Hampton 
Court she may be seen in a mantle covered with red 
feathers, a white turban on her head also decked with red 
feathers. Thick dark eyebrows, red cheeks, a long nose and 
a weak chin ; dark ringlets hanging on each side, the usual 
pearls and the tapering fingers of her day. By her mother's 
account, Mary had a passion for dress and ornaments. It 
was considered etiquette for her to visit Mademoiselle in 
mourning, though her young husband had been dead six 
years, but her pearls were splendid, her bracelets clasped 
with large diamonds, her fingers covered with rings. 

" My daughter is not like me," said the Queen to Made- 
moiselle. " She loves magnificence ; has jewels and money ; 
is extravagant. I tell her every day that she ought to save ; 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 231 

that I was great as she, and greater, and that she can see 
what I am now." 

It does not appear that Mademoiselle took any particular 
fancy to her cousin of Orange. Mary had her merits : she 
had fought hard in Holland for the rights of her little son ; 
she was ready to make any sacrifice to help her brother to 
his throne of England. Gossip, which may have been as 
false as the slanders which pursued her mother, had a good 
deal to say about her way of living since her husband's 
death. But nothing of all this would have affected Made- 
moiselle. Though extremely open to flattery and to every 
sign of consideration, her native shrewdness had a way of 
seeing through flatterers. They must, at least, have some 
charm to attract her. And Mary overdid things a little. 
Her first embrace was too rapturous to please Mademoiselle. 
" A person I had never seen before." She talked rather too 
much, telling her cousin how she had longed to see her, how 
unwilling she had been to leave France without that pleasure ; 
how the King, her brother, had spoken of Mademoiselle with 
so much affection that she loved her without knowing her. 

Queen Henrietta listened to her daughter's eloquence with 
a touch of amusement, and struck in with polite speeches of 
her own. 

" Never, since my daughter came to France, have I heard 
her talk so much. You have great power over her, and I can 
see that if you two were long together, you would govern 
her completely ! " 

Later on Henrietta talked to her niece more confidentially. 
After expressing tender sympathy in her troublesome affairs 
with Monsieur, she began on the old subject which for a 
dozen years had never been far from her thoughts. 

" And the poor King of England ! You are so unfeeling 
as not to inquire for him." 

" It is my duty to listen without interrupting Your 
Majesty," Mademoiselle replied. " I was waiting for an 
opportunity to make my inquiries." 

"Alas, he is so foolish that he loves you still," said the 



232 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Queen. "When he left France, he begged me to tell you 
that he was in despair at taking no leave of you. I would 
not send you word, for fear of making you vain. But now 
that I see you, I cannot keep my good resolutions. Think — 
if you had married him, you would not be in your present 
position with your father. You would be your own mis- 
tress, with a household of your own choice ; and by this time 
you would be well settled in England. I am persuaded that 
the poor wretch will never be happy without you. If you 
had married him, he and I would agree better than we do ; 
you would have made him live on better terms with me." 

Mademoiselle answered, "If he cannot live at peace with 
Your Majesty, why should he do so with another person?" a 
remark which made Henrietta break out into praises of her 
son. 

It was a brilliant assembly that day at Chilly. All the 
great people in Paris — French, English, Dutch — had crowded 
out to pay their respects to the Queen and the Princesses. 
They held a real court in the great hall, and Mademoiselle 
gave a magnificent dinner to her aunt and cousins. Every 
one felt, probably, that the end of her years of exile was 
very near, and that it was worth while to pay distinguished 
attention to a princess who would soon take her right place 
in the world again. 

Among the guests was the still beautiful Madame de 
Chatillon. Since the death of the Due de Nemours she had 
consoled herself with many lovers and many adventures, not 
of the most respectable. At this moment the Prince de 
Conde and the King of England, besides various lesser 
names, were supposed to be rivals in her favour, and gossip 
whispered that King Charles meant to marry her. Queen 
Henrietta said a word to her niece on the subject, defending 
him from such a suspicion. Mademoiselle looked at Madame 
de Chatillon with interest and pity. 

" Nothing could be more splendid," she says. " She had a 
gown of flame-coloured taffetas, all embroidered with silver 
cord. She was more red and white than ever ; with more 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 233 

diamonds in her ears, on her fingers, on her arms ; enfin dans 
une derniere magnificence." 

Some years later Madame de Chatillon married Christian 
Louis, Duke of Mecklenburg. She is mentioned frequently, 
as " Madame de Meckelbourg," in the later memoirs of the 
seventeenth century. She became very miserly in her old 
age, heaping up money and jewels while France was wasted 
with famine, in a way which shocked the generous mind of 
Madame de Sevigne. 

It was during this same visit to the neighbourhood of 
Paris that Mademoiselle, with the King's permission, made 
her first acquaintance with Queen Christina of Sweden. 
That extraordinary woman had been travelling for two 
years, and had been five or six weeks in France, on her 
return from Rome, when Mademoiselle saw her. The inter- 
view took place at M. Esselin's house at Essonne, which 
seems to have been a beautiful place in the style of an 
Italian villa, much visited by royalties. 

Mademoiselle was dying with curiosity to see the Queen, 
whose eccentricities were the talk of Europe, but she took 
prodigious forethought for her own dignity — "the honour of 
France," she called it — insisting on a chaise a bras being 
provided for her in the royal presence. Christina was not 
the woman to make any difficulties on points of etiquette. 
Mademoiselle was informed that the Queen honoured her 
person even more than her rank, and would treat her exactly 
as she wished to be treated. 

She drove over from Petitbourg, where she was visiting 
her old enemy and her father's old favourite the Abbe de 
la Riviere, now Bishop of Langres. It was towards eight 
o'clock on a September evening. She found the Queen> 
with a crowd of people, looking on at a ballet in M. Esselin's 
Italian saloon. The Due de Guise and other gentlemen 
were present, representing the French Court ; Mademoiselle 
was attended by the Comtesse de Bethune, Madame Bouthil- 
lier, and her own ladies. 

Queen Christina received her politely and kindly, and the 



234 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

chaise a bras was in readiness, though benches had to be 
jumped over to reach it. The Queen herself was hardly- 
such a figure of fun as Mademoiselle had hoped and ex- 
pected. She was small and fair, with blue eyes, " like a 
pretty little boy." She was dressed in a grey silk petticoat 
trimmed with gold and silver lace and a flame-coloured 
bodice ; her handkerchief, of Genoese point, was knotted 
with a flame-coloured ribbon ; she wore a fair wig, and 
carried in her hand a hat with black feathers. She talked 
agreeably, asking Mademoiselle questions about her family ; 
when the Comte de Bethune was presented to her, she spoke 
with interest of his manuscripts and other treasures. She 
was, in fact, though Mademoiselle seems hardly to have 
known it, one of the first art patrons and collectors of the 
day. 

But her manners were skin-deep. A comedy followed the 
ballet ; " and then," says Mademoiselle, " she startled me. 
In praising anything that pleased her, she used oaths — elle 
juroit Dieu. She lolled in her chair, flung her legs from side 
to side, threw them over the arms ; in fact I never saw such 
postures except in the two buffoons, Trivelin and Jodelet 
She repeated the verses she liked ; she chattered about all 
sorts of things. . . . Sometimes she falls into a profound 
reverie ; sighs deeply ; then recovers herself suddenly, like 
a person waking with a start ; she is quite extraordinary." 

After the play there were fireworks, some of which went 
off so near the Queen and her guest that Mademoiselle was 
frightened, and showed it. The Queen laughed at her. Was 
it possible that a demoiselle who had done such great things 
could be afraid ? Mademoiselle answered that she was brave 
only on special occasions. 

The Queen gratified her by praises of her friend the Prince 
de Conde, and also by a great many questions and much 
sympathy as to her private difficulties. " She wished to do 
her best to reconcile me with the Court and with His Royal 
Highness. I was not born to lead a country life. I was 
born to be a Queen, and she wished passionately that I 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 235 

might be Queen of France ; it would be for the political 
advantage of the State. I was the handsomest, the most 
charming, the richest, and the greatest Princess in Europe ; 
. . . and she meant to talk about it to Monsieur le Cardinal." 

Mademoiselle thanked her for her obliging remarks, but 
begged her to do no such thing ; that dream was laid aside 
for ever. 

Christina's flatteries, however, made a very good impres- 
sion. Mademoiselle was so much struck with her friendli- 
ness that she exerted herself to see her again later in the 
autumn, when she was at Montargis on her way back from 
visiting the Court at Compiegne. Mademoiselle was then at 
Pont. She started at dawn with her two strongest com- 
panions, Madame de Thianges and Madame de Frontenac, 
and reached Montargis at ten o'clock at night. She was told 
in Italian that the Queen had gone to bed. She pretended 
not to understand the language, and insisted on sending up 
her name. Christina received her in bed, and this time 
Mademoiselle found her more bizarre than charming, with a 
napkin tied round her bald head and very mean surround- 
ings. But what could you expect from a " Queen of the 
Goths," who had upset the Court at Compiegne by her tact- 
less behaviour ! Actually, by way of pleasing young Louis 
XIV, she had advised him to marry Mademoiselle Mancini. 
" If I were in your place I should marry the woman I 
loved ! " This showed what her flatteries were worth, 
and Mademoiselle seems to have regretted her hurried 
journey. 

Queen Christina, travelling about without one single 
woman in attendance, and followed everywhere by her 
Italian lover, Sentinelli, horrified even the society of that 
day. Plenty of people might be as bad, but few were so 
barefaced, and with most of the Queen's French acquaint- 
ances disgust succeeded amusement. 

Mademoiselle visited her once again formally at Fontaine- 
bleau, not long after she had committed the most terrible 
action of her life — the murder of her equerry, Monaldeschi. 



236 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

In Christina's own view the man was a traitor, and she saw 
no difference between cutting off his head in Sweden and 
having him stabbed to death in France. Opinion there was 
quite able to appreciate her view ; but the deed was con- 
sidered unwomanly, barbarous, cruel, and worse still, wanting 
in courtesy. The Queen of Sweden had no business, they 
said, to kill her equerry in a palace belonging to the King of 
France, staining his beautiful Galerie des Cerfs with pools of 
blood that no scrubbing would cleanse away. Little wonder 
that in spite of Christina's renewed flatteries and civilities, 
Mademoiselle " could not help thinking of what she had 
done." 



CHAPTER III 

1657-1658 

" Volons ! plus de noires pensees ! — 
Ce sont les tambours que j'entends. 
Voici les dames entassees, 
Les tentes de pourpre dressees, 
Les fleurs et les drapeaux flottans." 

mademoiselle's religion— the abbeys of jouarre and port 

ROYAL — mademoiselle's RETURN TO THE COURT — THE KING AND HIS 
BROTHER — THE CARDINAL AND HIS NIECES— PARISIAN GAIETIES — THE 
PURCHASE OF EU 

ONE cannot perhaps, with any justice, call Mademoiselle 
de Montpensier a religious woman. She was too per- 
sonnelle, as the French say — too narrow of outlook, too im- 
perious, too well contented with herself, too tolerant of vice 
in high places, though angry enough when people of her 
world degraded themselves to the level of the canaille. She 
was incapable of the spiritual enthusiasm which carried such 
women as the Duchesse de Longueville and the Princesse 
Palatine so far towards heaven in the reaction from the fiery 
politics and pleasures of their day. 

Mademoiselle, one may say, knew neither the depths nor 
the heights of women like these. She had her instincts of 
right and wrong, and she was loyal to them. It was partly, 
no doubt, a matter of temperament, but partly too a certain 
moral strength and straightness, a proud self-respect, rare 
enough in that world where the majority of men and women 
were ruled by their passions. Mademoiselle had learnt from 
Corneille that self-conquest was both possible and necessary. 
But the seed of Corneille's ideas must have fallen on a 
nature prepared to receive it. All the heroes and heroines 
of the Fronde were his listeners ; but with most of them love 

237 



238 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

of wild adventure — fully shared by Mademoiselle — was the 
sole consequence. 

Mademoiselle was not a saint, but she was a good woman 
according to the standard of her day. Her charities and 
benefactions were large. She kept the rules of the Church 
strictly, liked sermons, took an interest in ecclesiastical 
matters, and found considerable pleasure in visiting con- 
vents and abbeys, where she was not a too disturbing 
element. The nuns were delighted to welcome this friendly 
Princess, who amused their generally simple minds in various 
ways. 

Mademoiselle was fond of spending Church festivals at 
the Abbey of Jouarre, near Meaux, where the services, she 
says, were conducted with peculiar dignity, and the gardens 
were spacious and beautiful. The Abbess, Henriette de 
Lorraine, well known for her disputes with Bossuet, her 
Bishop, as to the privileges of her office, and for her retire- 
ment to Port Royal in the days of its decline, was an early 
acquaintance of Mademoiselle. She was the youngest of 
the three daughters of Madame de Chevreuse. That Amazone 
frangaise, as the Parisians called her, had disposed of two 
of her daughters in religion. The eldest, Anne-Marie, died 
young as Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames. The second, Charlotte, 
with all her mother's beauty and impatient temper but little 
of her wits, was dragged about in exile as a girl ; was a 
political puppet during the Fronde, flattered and made use 
of by the worthless Retz ; then, still the victim of selfish 
intrigue, was for a short time promised in marriage to the 
Prince de Conti ; and died in 1652 of malignant fever, after 
a few hours' illness. 

Mademoiselle gives a pleasant sketch of her visit to the 
Abbey of Jouarre for the festival of All Saints, in the last 
year of her exile from the Court. She met there the Bishop 
of Amiens, Francois Faure, a courtly and agreeable person- 
age, who had begun life as a Franciscan monk and had 
preached himself into eminence. Mademoiselle approved 
highly of his sermon. She praises the fine service in the 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 239 

abbey church, but did her best, it seems, to distract the 
good nuns from their prayers. 

" My great-aunts," she says, " Anne and Jeanne de Bour- 
bon, were Abbesses of Jouarre. As I passed into the tribune, 
I rapped with my hand on the desk to make the nuns look 
up ; the old ones said that my aunts did just the same." 

About this time, purely from curiosity and for the amuse- 
ment of doing something not quite orthodox. Mademoiselle 
visited the famous Abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs. She 
had evidently been reading both Les Provinciales and the 
Jesuit answers to Pascal's attack, and her remarks are rather 
interesting, for they show the kind of impression made on 
the lay mind by these controversies. Mademoiselle is a fair 
representative of the natural, just, orthodox, unimaginative 
lay mind of her day. To her, the whole business appeared 
simple enough. Jansenius, she declares, died in the odour of 
sanctity, and in his writings on grace had merely followed 
St. Augustine. His follower, the Abbe de Saint-Cyran, a 
learned and excellent man, had been thrown into prison by 
Richelieu — who could do nothing right in Mademoiselle's 
eyes, one must remember — probably because he was afraid of 
the new light thrown on religious matters by good men. 

The history of Port-Royal need not be told here. Made- 
moiselle describes how the abbey was transferred to Paris, 
and then, when the surrounding country became safe once 
more, how the Mother House in the fields was again in- 
habited. She dwells on the devotion of the Arnauld family, 
on that wonderful life of faith and works, the sincerity of 
which could never be doubted, though its expediency and 
entire orthodoxy were questioned by the " illustre congrega- 
tion " of the Jesuits. No women and very few men, in 
Mademoiselle's opinion, should be allowed to speak on 
matters of theology, and she acknowledges the learning and 
zeal of the Jesuits. But the moral strictness and the daily 
labours of the hermits of Port-Royal-des-Champs, who had 
lived there all through the civil wars, gained her sincere 
admiration. 



240 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

"They served God with zeal," she writes, "and their neigh- 
bour with charity. They wrote books and made admirable 
translations ; worked in their gardens, helped the poor ; in 
short, led a life most unusual. For people of the world, they 
made penitence stricter than the religious generally do ; . , . 
this particularly enraged the Jesuits, who called them Jansen- 
ists . . . such a name might scare people away by suggesting 
heresy. ... In their daily lives they are admirable; they 
preach and write with eloquence, and do a wonderful work 
for the glory of the Church and the Saints. . . . Their devo- 
tion is sincere ; retired from the world, disinterested as to 
riches and honours, charitable to the last degree. If their 
doctrine is wrong, we must hope that leading such good 
lives they may obtain by prayer the light necessary for 
knowing this and amending it." 

Such was the impression made on Mademoiselle when she 
visited Port-Royal-des-Champs, fresh from the strong plead- 
ing of " Louis de Montalte." She inquired first for M. 
Arnauld d'Andilly, whom she had known in her youth, both 
at the Luxembourg and the Hotel de Rambouillet. He 
received her in his garden cell. 

" I glanced at his table. He said, ' You are curious ; you 
wish to see how I amuse myself: I am making a translation 
from St. Theresa.' I thanked him, saying, ' I love that saint, 
and shall be very glad to see her works well represented ; the 
translations till now have been bad.' 

" I entered the convent, where I found a numerous com- 
munity ; the nuns appeared devout, innocent, simple, and 
unaffected. I thought the church very solemn. I went all 
over the convent, looking at everything, expecting to find 
some great difference between this and others I have seen ; I 
found it exactly like all other reformed abbeys of the Order 
of Saint Bernard. The nuns were puzzled enough ; when I 
saw images of the saints in their cells, I cried out, ' Ah ! 
there are saints ! ' but they dared not question me. 

" Going out, M. d'Andilly said to me, ' Well, you have 
seen relics and images of the saints, revered by our sisters ; 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 241 

you see they have their rosaries.' I said to him, ' It is true ; 
I had heard that such things were Httle considered here, and 
I am glad to have seen for myself.' M. d'Andilly said, ' You 
are going to Court ; you might bear witness to the Queen of 
what you have seen here.' I assured him that I would wil- 
lingly do so; he promised me the community's prayers and his 
own, and said many good words, persuading me to a devout 
life. I went away well satisfied with all I had seen and 
heard." 

It was not a likely moment, perhaps, for Arnauld dAn- 
dilly's words to bear much fruit. A reconciliation between 
Mademoiselle and her father had been brought about by the 
efforts of the Dues de Beaufort and de Guise and the Comte 
de Bethune. After this it was not long before Monsieur, 
now on friendly terms with the Court, arranged with Mazarin 
that Mademoiselle should be received back into the royal 
favour. She was invited to join the Court at Sedan, where 
the King and his mother were watching Turenne's cam- 
paign against the Spaniards and the still rebellious Prince de 
Conde. 

The invitation reached Mademoiselle at Saint-Cloud, 
where all Paris had crowded to welcome her. Among other 
old playfellows came the new Duchesse de Nemours, the Due 
de Longueville's brilliant daughter, ior Ta&rly grande frondeuse, 
who had just made what everybody thought a very odd 
marriage. 

Charles-Am^dee, Due de Nemours, killed in the duel with 
Beaufort, had been succeeded by his brother Henry, Arch- 
bishop of Reims without being a priest, like the Due de 
Guise before him. He seemed devoted to his profession, and 
had seriously thought of being ordained. He was not rich, 
was nothing in society, being " scholastically minded," and 
was disfigured by disease. Suddenly, says Mademoiselle, he 
began paying court to Mademoiselle de Longueville, who 
was in every way his superior. Great matches had been 
proposed for her : the Duke of Mantua, the Duke of York 
even the King of England ; for she was one of the richest 

R 



242 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

women in France. Older than Mademoiselle, she must have 
been more than thirty at this time, and she lived a quiet life, 
devoted to books and withdrawn from the world. She thus 
had plenty of leisure and opportunity to reflect on what she 
was doing. " Elle souffroit ce gar^on ; il soupoit tous les 
soirs chez elle ; enfin elle s'embarquoit furieusement." A 
similar love of books may have been the attraction. But 
she wept at her wedding ; the poor Duke was taken ill at the 
church door; and Madame de Nemours left him drinking 
asses' milk when she visited Mademoiselle at Saint-Cloud, a 
few weeks later. 

Mademoiselle started for Sedan in the last week of July. 
Not wishing to pass through Paris, she made her first day's 
journey by cross-roads, lost her way, and wandered till long 
after midnight in the silent moonlit country. At Dammartin 
she joined the Comte de Bethune and a large party of 
courtiers, who had arranged to travel together because of the 
disturbed state of the country. The roads were bad, and 
the fords of the rivers dangerous. All that part of France, 
desolated by years of war, was still subject to raids from the 
enemy in Flanders and on the frontier. The woods near 
Reims were said to be infested with "coureurs de Rocroy"; 
the peasants were all fighting men ; and Cardinal Mazarin 
sent a strong escort of horse to convey Mademoiselle safely 
from Reims to Sedan. They also had charge of two cart- 
loads of money, which M. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Mazarin's 
intendant, was bringing to his master. Mademoiselle had a 
good deal of talk with Colbert and was pleased with his 
intelligence. But she would have laughed if any one had 
then prophesied that the Duchesse de Chevreuse would 
marry her grandson to Colbert's daughter. 

Mademoiselle arrived at Sedan on the ist of August, and 
found the Queen and her ladies amusing themselves in a 
meadow. Her Royal Highness dashed upon the scene with 
characteristic clatter, more suited to a victorious heroine than 
to a repentant rebel. 

" I arrived in that meadow at full speed, my coach escorted 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 243 

by gendarmes and light cavalry, their trumpets sounding in 
a triumphant manner. Approaching the Queen's coach, 
they halted and formed up between hers and mine. I 
descended twenty paces away, and kissed the Queen's dress 
and her hands. She did me the honour to embrace me, and 
said she was very glad to see me ; that at one time she had 
been angry with me ; that she had borne me no grudge be- 
cause of the Orleans affair ; but for that of the Porte St. 
Antoine she would gladly have strangled me." This amiable 
instinct seems to have been natural to the Queen, who 
wished on one memorable occasion to strangle the Coadjutor. 

Mademoiselle took it meekly, and Anne went on to assure 
her that all was now forgotten, and to pay her compliments 
on her improved appearance ; they had not met for six years. 
Mademoiselle pointed out the grey hairs that were showing 
themselves among her fine brown locks. She had put on no 
powder that morning, in order that the Queen might see 
how long her exile had been. 

That exile, with all its particulars, interested Anne of 
Austria very much for the moment. Mademoiselle had to 
answer a thousand questions as to her life at Saint-Fargeau, 
with all its amusements and annoyances. The Queen ex- 
pressed sympathy as to the quarrel with Monsieur ; she 
knew him well. During the few days that passed before the 
King's return from Montmedy she occupied herself very 
much with her niece ; she gossiped with her, arranged her 
hair, showed off her own new jewellery ; behaved, in short, 
like an ordinary good-natured aunt. Mademoiselle enjoyed 
the changed atmosphere; never since her infancy had she 
been on such pleasant terms with the wife of Louis XIII. 

Her cousin the King, now a spirited lad of nineteen, came 
galloping back to Sedan as soon as Montmedy had sur- 
rendered to his troops, the garrison marching out unharmed. 
He arrived wet and muddy at two in the afternoon; the 
Queen had put off dinner for him. He came straight in, 
neglige but handsome, and greeted his cousin with laughing 
ease. The Queen said, " Let me present a young lady who 



244 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

is very sorry for being naughty ; she will be very good in 
future." The boy, like any other boy, had nothing to say to 
that : he began telling stories of his siege and of an adventure 
in the woods on the way back to Sedan. His coach had been 
attacked in a hollow called the Mouse-hole by ten or twelve 
free-lances from a little chateau hidden in the forest. He 
had mounted his horse, chased the men, and captured them. 

" You had better send them back, as it was you who took 
them," said the wise Queen-mother ; and she then asked 
what had become of her younger son. 

Philippe, then of Anjou, did not naturally care for risky 
adventures with highwaymen. Nobody was surprised that 
he had remained safe in the coach while his brother risked a 
more valuable life among the trees of that wood haunted by 
musketeers. But nobody cried shame upon him. The King 
quietly remarked, " II n'^toit point botte." 

The pretty, attractive boy, with whom Mademoiselle was 
already half in love, for she saw or fancied signs that the 
King and Queen meant her to marry him, arrived "ajuste 
au dernier point " soon afterwards. He was dressed entirely 
in grey, with flame-coloured ribbons — a favourite combina- 
tion. He paid Mademoiselle all kinds of attention, em- 
braced her with jokes and flatteries which she cordially 
returned, took her into his own room to see his jewellery, 
and treated her, then and afterwards, like a favourite sister. 
She, who always had something of the child about her, and 
who loved amusement at thirty just as much as at fifteen, 
was quite ready to live as a comrade with this new little 
Monsieur. The spoilt creature, frivolous and mischief- 
making, had been ruined by the effeminate bringing-up that 
his mother and Mazarin thought necessary in order to keep 
him in the shadow of his elder brother. They dressed him 
as a girl, they made him the plaything of the Queen's 
women, and taught him to live for nothing but sloth, dress, 
and gossip. Mademoiselle, to do her justice, tried to 
make a man of him, but at seventeen he was already past 
praying for. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 245 

Mademoiselle knew that the meeting with Cardinal Mazarin 
was quite as important as that with her royal aunt and 
cousins. The great man was at the very height of his 
power, and also, for sufficient reasons, of his unpopularity. 
He was more grasping, more miserly, and more tyrannical 
than ever. Madame Arvede Barine gives a wonderful picture 
of him at this time, when even his faithful slave, the Queen, 
could not help complaining of his odious temper to Madame 
de Motteville. It was no longer necessary for Mazarin to 
dissemble, and the society he had conquered knew him in 
his true colours. He was no longer even outwardly " doux 
et benin." He took toll of everybody and on everything. 
The universal agent and middleman, he sold all appoint- 
ments, and the salary of all officials grew smaller in passing 
through his hands. It was the same with the army's pay 
and food, with the King's entertainments and the keeping 
up of his palaces. As long as the Cardinal's rule lasted, 
Louis had no money but what was grudgingly doled out to 
him. 

Madame Arvede Barine points out justly that Mazarin's 
real greatness, his political and diplomatic genius, was hardly 
understood in his own day. Few knew or cared to know 
what he was doing for France beyond the frontier, and his 
work as Richelieu's successor in establishing absolute 
monarchy was not really welcome to the country. The 
monarchy had to be, and the crushed nobility of France had 
to accept it ; they did so, and crawled to its feet ; but though 
advancing civilisation no doubt demanded it, the thing was 
as evil for them as for the million peasants who were taxed 
to pay its expenses. A fine race of men was spoilt, when 
fighting nobles were turned into bowing courtiers. 

Outwardly the Cardinal met Mademoiselle with all 
possible sweetness. Etiquette required that the first friendly 
advances should come from her. Curtseying low to his 
Eminence, she said to the Queen, " I think it would be well, 
Madame, after all that has passed, if Your Majesty were 
to command us to embrace. For my part, I would cordially 



246 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

obey." Mazarin came forward, knelt, and embraced her 
knees. She raised and embraced him, and they exchanged 
affectionate compliments. Mademoiselle, less candid than 
with her old enemy the Prince de Conde, assured the Cardinal 
that she had never disliked him. 

On the following day she took him into her coach, and his 
remarks made her laugh. 

"If any one had told you in 1652," he said, "that 'le 
Mazarin' would some day be sitting beside you in your coach, 
you would not have believed it. And yet here he is — that 
Mazarin who did so much mischief." 

Mademoiselle prudently replied, " I never thought he was 
so bad, and I always judged that things would come round 
in time." 

She was obliged to accept not only " le Mazarin," but also 
" les Mazarinettes," and the new manners that he and they 
were imposing on the Court of France. She had had a 
foretaste of these at Saint-Cloud, where her old friend, the 
Princesse de Carignan, the lady of the sugarplums, had 
brought her daughter-in-law, Olympe Mancini, Comtesse de 
Soissons, to pay a visit of ceremony. Madame de Carignan 
arrived in a great fuss and full of compliments. As the day 
was very hot, the rooms crowded, and Madame de Soissons 
not very well, Mademoiselle invited her into a smaller room 
and left the other guests for a short time on purpose to 
entertain her. At first the young lady would not speak at 
all. Then she asked suddenly, " Why don't you wear 
your ruffles like other people ? " Mademoiselle replied 
that they teased her. " If you think your arms look better 
so, you are mistaken," said the minx. She then grumbled 
a little about being bored by her mother-in-law, and after 
that, though Mademoiselle said many false but necessary 
things about herself and her uncle, she spoke not another 
word. 

She and her sisters were the most important people at 
Court. Marie-Anne, the youngest, afterwards Duchesse de 
Bouillon and patroness of La Fontaine, was Queen Anne's 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 247 

pet and the Cardinal's favourite playfellow. She was in the 
Queen's coach in the meadow at Sedan when Mademoiselle 
arrived there, and was the first person presented to her. 
Still more powerful was Marie Mancini, who at this time and 
for two or three years more had a fair chance of marrying 
Louis XIV. She was his first love and the preferred friend 
of his life, though she had reason enough in later years to 
put no faith in princes. 

Under such influences as these, the greatest names in 
France being laid at the feet of a group of young Italian 
women who had neither high rank nor high breeding, it may 
be imagined that the atmosphere of the Court was changed, 
and that Mademoiselle, so characteristic a survival of " la 
vieille cour," was somewhat out of place there after her years 
of exile. 

The King, in these young days of his, hated ceremony, 
and cared for nothing but sport, masquerading, and dancing. 
The plays of Quinault, a tragi-comic, sentimental bridge 
between Corneille and Racine, were the rather weak intel- 
lectual food of the moment. Great people had always, of 
course, been frivolous, vicious, and greedy, but somehow in a 
finer way. " Le vice s'encanaillait." Manners and taste had 
altered together, and temporarily at any rate for the worse. 
Madame de Rambouillet's "societe d'elite" had ceased to 
exist, but the />redosite which Moliere caricatured was flourish- 
ing under the wing of Mademoiselle de Scudery. Her pe- 
dantic " Saturdays," crowded with foolish, underbred literary 
people, were a much duller and vulgarised copy of the aris- 
tocratic Chanibre Bleue with its culture and grace. 

Mademoiselle did not admire the change in her world, 
though, like all her old friends, she made the best of it. She 
at least held the comforting doctrine that the King could do 
no wrong. 

Her Paris home for the rest of her life was the Luxem- 
bourg Palace. Her father, who seldom came to Court in his 
later years, gave her apartments there, and after his death 
she shared it with her stepmother and her half-sisters. In 



248 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

these first years after her restoration to favour she found life 
amazingly gay, and her Memoirs are full of curious pictures 
of the amusements she shared with the King and his brother 
and the rest of the new society. 

Paris crowded the streets, with shouts of welcome, when 
its favourite Princess drove through them once again. Other 
women might be queens of France ; she was still Queen of 
Paris, and nothing but old age and her own foolishness could 
dethrone her. She had now a certain fame as one of the 
heroines of the Fronde, and there were plenty of people who 
found it in their hearts to regret those dashing days of street 
fighting, plunder, and varied adventure. The Parisians have 
never cared to be flattened down into good behaviour under 
a strictly civilised government. 

The Luxembourg — often called the Palais d'Orleans — was 
crowded with visitors. Among them came Mademoiselle's 
old enemy, the Duchesse dAiguillon ; a most formal visit 
hers, for she and the Due de Richelieu had bitterly resented 
the decree that forced them to restore Champigny. The 
affectations of twenty years before had grown on Madame 
dAiguillon. She appeared in gloves of Spanish leather so 
overpoweringly scented that Mademoiselle, who was troubled 
with headaches, found it almost impossible to approach her. 

" I drew back, holding my nose, and told her the smell 
would make me faint. . . . There were people silly enough 
to say that I would not speak to her, and that I did it on 
purpose to disoblige her. I am not capable of such foolish 
inventions ; when I wish to quarrel with any one, I do it 
openly." 

The story does not say whether Madame dAiguillon with- 
drew discreetly, like Conde when Madame objected to his 
Russia-leather boots, or sent her perfumed gloves to wait in 
the ante-room. It is not unlikely that she was one of the 
people who compared Mademoiselle to a mousquetaire. 

Those were merry winters. The King, Monsieur, Made- 
moiselle, and all the younger lords and ladies of the Court, 
used to go out masked into the streets, hurrying from one 







(J K 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 249 

ball to another, dancing everywhere, mystifying everybody 
and mystified themselves. They met bands of people 
dressed like pilgrims and like Capuchin monks, who caused 
great scandal by what was considered a serious insult to 
religion. One of the Capuchins showed a lovely arm and 
hand, and it came out afterwards that the sham monk was 
that Comtesse d'Olonne, already notorious, whom Made- 
moiselle had known in her youth as the beautiful Made- 
moiselle de la Loupe. All this made a fine text for the 
Lenten preachers. 

There were ballets at the Louvre, and comedies without 
end, some d machine, others worthier precursors of Moliere, 
such as L'Astyanax, by the Sieur de Salebray, who "collected 
very agreeably in this work," says a Gazette of the time, 
" the finest scenes of the Iliad." Moliere himself, with his 
company, first appeared at the Louvre, under Monsieur's 
protection, in the autumn of 1658. Mademoiselle, it seems, 
was not at once attracted by him. But she was old-fashioned 
and conservative ; probably, in spite of King and Court and 
all the new lights, she preferred the comedies of old Father 
Corneille, Certainly, as we know, she defended him stoutly 
when Racine began to march upon the scene. 

The fair of Saint-Germain was a great resource for Made- 
moiselle. It was held between Saint-Sulpice and Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, thus conveniently near the Luxembourg, 
and it lasted from Candlemas to the end of Lent. 

" I love the fair," she writes, on one of the many occasions 
when little Monsieur was her escort. " I was very lucky : 
I won a number of cabinets and mirrors which I wanted for 
furnishing my rooms." 

Lotteries were all the fashion, and Mademoiselle, who 
hated cards and banished them from her assemblies, did not 
at all disapprove of this form of gambling. Cardinal Mazarin 
covered a multitude of his sins by a famous lottery with 
which he amused the Court. The fame of his splendid 
liberality was spread all over Europe. 

" M. le Cardinal did a gallant and extraordinary thing," 



250 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

writes Mademoiselle. " He invited their Majesties, the 
Queen of England, the Princess her daughter, and myself, to 
supper. We found his rooms very well arranged ; the fish 
supper was magnificent. It was a Sunday in Lent ; there 
was dancing after supper. He led the two Queens, the 
Princess and me, into a gallery quite full of everything 
imaginable in the way of jewels, trinkets, furniture, stuffs, all 
the pretty things that come from China, crystal chandeliers, 
mirrors, tables, cabinets of every shape, silver plate, perfumes, 
gloves, ribbons, fans. The gallery was as well filled as the 
booths in the fair ; but there was no rubbish, everything 
being carefully chosen. He did not tell us what he meant to 
do ; every one could see he had some design. . . . Two days 
later the mystery was solved, for he took the Queen and me 
into a cabinet where the lottery was drawn. There were no 
blanks, and he gave the whole to the ladies and gentlemen of 
the Court. The first prize was a diamond worth four thou- 
sand crowns, which luck gave to La Salle, a lieutenant in the 
royal gendarmes. I drew a diamond worth four thousand 
francs." 

Mademoiselle was still better pleased with the Cardinal 
because he refused to admit her false friends, the Comtesses 
de Fiesque and de Frontenac, to this famous lottery. Being 
thus shut out, their spite and rage knew no bounds and were 
wreaked soon after on Mademoiselle. The King being dan- 
gerously ill, all Paris in mourning and anxiety, all music 
stopped, these ladies spread a report that Mademoiselle's 
fiddlers had been playing in the Place Royale. It was not 
the case, but in that world of gossip and slander Mademoiselle 
had some trouble in proving the innocence of her men. 

Her mind was by no means entirely occupied with balls, 
fairs, lotteries, masquerades, and quarrels. It was about this 
time that she bought from Mademoiselle de Guise and the 
other guardians of the young Due de Joyeuse the chateau 
and the great estates of Eu, where a good deal of her after- 
life was spent. The neglected condition of Eu gave full 
scope to Mademoiselle's talent for building and decorating. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 251 

laying out and improving. After she came into full posses- 
sion, the restoration of the immense wilderness which had 
once been a splendid forest was an undertaking which needed 
a vast expenditure of thought, time, and money. Eu, with 
its Norman sternness, salt air and northerly winds, became 
more of a home to Mademoiselle in her later years than any 
other of her country-houses. Here she wrote the larger part 
of her admirable Memoirs. Here too she went through 
many painful and enraging scenes with the worthless 
M. de Lauzun. 



CHAPTER IV 

I 658- I 660 

" The glories of our blood and state 
Are shadows, not substantial things." 

SOVEREIGN PRINCESS OF DOMBES — THE DUCHESSE DE MONTMOR- 
ENCY — ROYAL VISITS TO CHAMBORD AND BLOIS — ROYAL JOURNEYS IN 
THE SOUTH — PROCLAMATION OF PEACE AND RETURN OF CONDE — THE 
DEATH OF GASTON D'ORLEANS 

MADEMOISELLE was not only the first Princess of 
the blood royal in France ; she was also an indepen- 
dent sovereign. Her principality of Dombes, on the left 
bank of the Saone between Dijon and Lyons, had owed no 
service to the Kings of France, except military aid in war, 
since the days of Philippe Auguste. Its people paid no 
taxes ; it coined its own money, and was managed by a little 
parliament of its own, sitting at Trevoux, the capital. The 
Pays de Dombes was one of those curious instances of home 
rule under a feudal lord which were then scattered about 
Europe, to disappear one by one from the path of logical 
centralised government. It kept this partial independence 
till the year 1762. 

Mademoiselle's officers seem to have ruled with a light 
hand, like those of her ancestors, who had possessed Dombes 
for centuries. She inherited the principality from her mother ; 
but it was a cross-country journey of many days from Paris, 
and she never visited it till the year 1658, when she travelled 
into the East with the Court, on the way to a meeting with 
the royal House of Savoy. It was a delightful autumn jour- 
ney, made mostly on horseback, for the season was fine and 
the roads were good. Mademoiselle was glad to be free of 
the formalities of the Louvre and Fontainebleau, though she 

252 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 253 

did not much enjoy the company of the Cardinal's nieces or 
the King's increasing flirtations with them. 

It is curious to note that just at this time the death of 
the Prince de Conti's nine-days-old son saved the French 
Court from " the shame of wearing mourning for the 
destroyer of the English monarchy." Mademoiselle declares 
that only an express order from the King would have made 
her wear mourning for Cromwell, considering the respect 
she owed to her near relation, the Queen of England. 
Queen Anne very readily gave Mademoiselle leave to absent 
herself from the Louvre whenever the English ambassadors 
were expected there. 

The Court lingered some days at Dijon, where the States 
of Burgundy were sitting, rather mournful at the enormous 
war taxes the King was trying to extort. M. Brulart, the 
President, seems to have found Mademoiselle the most 
sympathetic member of the royal party. " He said that 
if I had lived in the time of those who made the Salic law, 
or if they could have foreseen that France would possess 
a Princess such as I, they would never have made it, or at 
least it would have been abolished in my favour," 

At Dijon, Mademoiselle's officers of the Pays de Dombes 
appeared to receive her orders, and lower down the river she 
travelled in full view of her possessions on the opposite 
bank. Her people were eagerly watching for her : quaint, 
prosperous peasants, the young girls in broad hats which 
delighted the liege lady. They came rowing across the 
river, lying in wait for her coach, crying, " Where is 
Madame ? " and the King enjoyed pointing her out to them. 
" Long live the King and Madame ! " shouted the good folk 
of Dombes. 

Among the many solemn deputations who attended and 
harangued the King at Lyons, that from the Parliament of 
Dombes had the most magnificent air. Their Princess, as 
she often tells us, was fond of *' les choses d'honneur." The 
sight of booted and travel-stained deputies from Orange and 
from Geneva did not suit her ideas of the becoming ; and 



254 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

at her earnest request, the King and the Cardinal received 
her magistrates as "sovereign judges," clothed in the red 
robes of their office. It was an additional pleasure to her 
that her deputies, not being the King's subjects, did not 
kneel in his presence. Mademoiselle would have made a 
fine constitutional Queen, to judge by her jealousy for the 
honour of " my parliament." 

She had to assist at the ceremonial reception of her aunt 
Christine, Duchess of Savoy — Henry IV's second daughter, 
known as Madame Royale — who brought her son and 
daughters to Lyons with an object she failed to attain, the 
marriage of Princess Marguerite with Louis XIV. Made- 
moiselle did not care for her aunt, who made herself a 
laughing-stock at the French Court by disappointment too 
openly shown, but she rather liked the Duke of Savoy, and 
he was at one time proposed as a possible match for her. 
During these weeks at Lyons she injured her own dignity a 
little by allowing Monsieur to drag her about, masked and 
uninvited, to various entertainments in the city, where the 
society, as Queen Anne justly thought, was too young, too 
wild, and too boisterous for a princess of her age, whose 
remarkable height and air made her always conspicuous. 
But the tomboy element in Mademoiselle took long in dying. 

As soon as the Savoyard guests were gone and Christmas 
was over, she made her desired expedition to her own little 
sovereignty. Heavy rains had been followed by a slight 
frost, and the sun was shining with a brightness of spring. 
The Saone had overflowed its banks, so that Mademoiselle's 
coach was obliged to turn inland ; but she mounted her horse 
and rode over the high ground near the river. At Vimy she 
hunted the hare with the archiepiscopal hounds. The Arch- 
bishop of Lyons, a sporting prelate, had a beautiful house 
there, with a terraced garden overlooking the river. As 
Mademoiselle rode, she had a view of wide-spreading wheat- 
fields, already, she declares, green as meadows in spring, and 
of distant hills dotted over with the cheerful country-houses 
of the citizens of Lyons. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 255 

Mademoiselle was pleased with the good looks and the 
prosperity of her subjects. " Nearly all the women are 
pretty," she says, " and they have the finest teeth in the world 
. . , the peasants are well dressed. There are no beggars 
to be seen. They have never paid any taxes, and perhaps it 
would be better if they did. For they are lazy, caring neither 
for work nor trade; which would be easy for them, being 
near the river and large towns. They eat meat four times a 
day." 

If Mademoiselle was rightly informed on this point, the 
people of Dombes were very much better off, not only than 
the rest of France in those days, but also than the majority 
of French peasants a century after the Revolution. There 
are many parts of France now where soup, cabbage, and 
bread, with an occasional scrap of bacon, and perhaps a little 
meat on Sunday, is the ordinary food of the people. 

Mademoiselle does not say whether she proceeded to lay 
taxes on these fortunate vassals of hers. Probably not, as 
this part of her Memoirs was not written till some time 
later. She expected, of course, to draw a revenue from 
Dombes ; but this was done in other ways ; for instance, by 
the sale of dignities and charges connected with the Parlia- 
ment. When the liege lord or lady wanted money, a new 
charge was created and sold. Gaston d'Orleans, as his 
daughter's guardian, had thus raised a good deal. On this 
occasion Mademoiselle created a president, several coun- 
cillors and other oflEicers, and received more than enough 
money to pay the expenses of her journey with the Court. 

She made a triumphal entry into her little capital. The 
municipal officers — still called Consuls, the tradition of Rome 
lingering at Trevoux, the ancient Triviae — knelt at the gate 
to present their keys. The church bells jangled ; the local 
militia fired off their guns ; the Dean preached and the 
choir sang a Te Deuni. Mademoiselle had no chateau at 
Trevoux, for " Messieurs de Montpensier " never lived there. 
The ruined castle above the town was even then nothing 
but a relic of much earlier centuries. She had bought a 



256 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

house with terrace and fountain, and there she spent two 
merry days. She dined in public, "to show myself to my 
subjects." She received presents of sweet lemons and mus- 
cat wine. The Parliament addressed her on their knees, and 
she addressed them in return, recommending her people to 
their care. After these solemnities she had a good deal of 
gay talk with the gentlemen who waited on her, and narrowly 
escaped being burnt to death, for a beam under the hearth 
caught fire and the smell of it reached her only just in time. 
Perhaps the old house was not accustomed to such fires as 
were lighted in those December days for Mademoiselle. 

She ended her visit to Dombes by liberating all prisoners, 
even villains who had given themselves up, after committing 
unpardonable crimes, on this good chance of coming off 
scot-free. They, however, were sent out of the little country 
and forbidden to return. " This is the custom," she says, 
" wherever the King goes ; that is, in places he visits for the 
first time." She performed her own duty to the King by 
causing him to be prayed for in the churches of Dombes : a 
privilege which belonged to her only. 

The King and all the younger ladies went riding back to 
Paris along the frozen roads, while the Queen, Mademoiselle, 
and the rest of the Court were glad to keep to their coaches. 
It was all very well to be hardy, and the King must of 
course have his own way. All his life Louis XIV's fellow- 
travellers had to make up their minds to hardship, for His 
Majesty was in some ways Spartan. But Mademoiselle 
pitied those young women. " They were very cold, though 
they had fur jackets. They had black velvet caps with 
feathers. But I think their ears were pinched in spite of 
that ; for in the open country the wind blows through one's 
curls." 

Yet it must have been a pretty cavalcade, and a merry 
one too. 

The whole Court broke its journey at Moulins, and there 
visited one of the tragic figures of the century, a monument 
of wars and revolts long before the Fronde. After twenty- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 257 

six years of semi-captivity, the widowed Duchesse de Mont- 
morency liad taken the veil in the Convent of the Filles de 
Sainte-Marie, which she had founded with the fortune that 
remained to her. There, in her cell, breathless from weak- 
ness and bowed with grief and premature age, the Roman 
beauty of a former generation received the young French 
Court. Queen Anne was deeply touched by the interview. 
She has the credit of having done her best to save the Due 
de Montmorency, but Richelieu and Louis XIII were im- 
placable. 

The young men of the party were pleasant enough with 
their idle remarks. 

"You would never have expected, Madame," said the 
King, " to see so many men in your little room. I am sure 
every one of us ought to be the better for entering it ! " 

The little dandy Monsieur was more picturesque, less 
simple, less really polished, but he showed appreciation of 
the romantic tragedy ending here. 

" Is it possible that ten feet of space should be now the 
habitation of Madame de Montmorency?" 

The young courtiers who crowded the doorway were 
amazed at the very slight apparent impression made on 
"Sister Marie-Henriette" by her splendid visitors. They 
thought she was in a kind of religious trance — " dans un 
ravissement" — so absent-minded did she seem, so uncon- 
scious of the great honour conferred upon her. 

In truth only one person besides the Queen succeeded in 
breaking the ice of Madame de Montmorency's long silence. 
She must have divined real sympathy, besides a lively 
curiosity, in Mademoiselle, so eager to talk of the ever- 
present past, and to atone, if she could, for the cowardly 
weakness which had made her father partly the cause of 
Henry de Montmorency's death. 

The Duchess, says Mademoiselle, " parla fort de feu M. de 

Montmorency, avec une tendresse inimaginable." She told 

Mademoiselle how she had loved her young husband with 

unequalled passion, even going so far as to love other 

s 



258 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

women whom he loved — and they were many. " Very 
extraordinary, to my fancy ! " says Mademoiselle. Perhaps 
" Sylvie's " romantic memory, brooding so long in solitude, 
may have deceived her a little here. Or else she was really 
superhuman. She lingered on the pretty details of that 
married life which ended so soon, describing what pains she 
took to provide the Duke with magnificent suits for the balls 
to which he often went alone, for she was even then too 
serious-minded to care for Court festivities. She described 
how she watched from her window for the first glimpse of him 
returning home, with other pathetic touches which delighted 
and edified Mademoiselle. 

As far as one knows, she never saw the Duchess again. 
Madame de Montmorency became Superior of her convent, 
and ended her sorrowful life in 1666, the year of the death of 
Anne of Austria. 

There is a certain pathos attaching to the last years of 
Gaston d'Orleans, now so long range and respectably buried 
at Blois with his tiresome wife and foolish little girls. It 
was necessary for him to show himself sometimes at Court, 
but he detested these occasions, and always made his stay 
as short as possible. He was treated with little respect or 
ceremony ; his daughter resented this for him, in spite of her 
own grievances. Some of her remarks show the almighty 
young tyrant, Louis XIV, in a most unamiable and dis- 
courteous light. In the evening walks at Fontainebleau, she 
says, the King hardly ever put on his hat ; it was therefore 
impossible for her father to wear his without a permission 
which was not given for a long time. Poor Gaston, whose 
health was far from good, dreaded the evening chills and 
mists. His only means of protecting his bare head was 
to lay his gloves upon it, a broad hint which ordinary kind- 
ness might have taken. But Louis, in truth, never forgave 
the leaders of the Fronde. He was ingenious in his ways of 
making them feel it, giving his own Most Christian Majesty 
the trouble to prove once more 

How very small the very great are ! 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 259 

No wonder that in the intervals of attending on his royal 
nephew Gaston poured out his injured mind to his daughter 
in such words as these : " I am terribly weary of being here ; 
I am desperately impatient to go home. The world bores 
me ; I am no longer fit for it. If I stayed here long, I should 
be ill with the fatigue of it all." 

As Mademoiselle herself says, history tells so much of the 
royal journey to the South in 1659, the Peace of the 
Pyrenees, the marriage of Louis XIV and the Infanta, that 
private memoirs may be content with personal details not 
generally known. She found a good deal of interest and 
amusement, boredom and annoyance, in this year-long 
absence from her familiar world. She enjoyed as much inde- 
pendence as anybody could find in the wake of the young 
King, already, with a certain pleasant stateliness, the most 
exigeant of monarchs and of men. 

Cardinal Mazarin travelled in advance of the Court, a 
messenger of peace, on his way to end the long war between 
France and Spain. The great train of the Court — this time 
not including Mademoiselle Mancini — leaving Fontainebleau 
at the end of July, swept down upon Chambord, where it 
was rather dismally received by the Duke and Duchess of 
Orleans. According to lingering custom — to be altered, a 
few years later, by Louis XIV — the hosts offered nothing at 
Chambord but the palace itself. Their servants were sent 
to Blois to make room. The royal guests entertained 
Monsieur at supper, and Mademoiselle, having brought her 
own household, did the honours of Chambord to all the 
ladies who had accompanied the Queen. 

Madame was ill, and there were " no walks at Chambord " ; 
therefore no means of amusing the Queen, who liked pacing 
gardens and terraces, and did not care to venture forth into 
the surrounding woods. The King went out shooting, and 
killed fourteen of his uncle's much loved and carefully 
preserved pheasants. Poor Gaston could not hide his dis- 
gust, which amused Louis excessively. 

The next day the Court dined at Blois, a feast for which 



26o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

immense preparations had been made. It had also been 
hoped that the charm of Mademoiselle d'Orleans, a pretty 
little girl of fourteen, known in her own family as " the little 
Queen," might even turn the King from the idea of marriage 
with his other unknown cousin, the Infanta. But alas for 
summer weather and an undrained century, Princess Mar- 
guerite's lovely complexion and slim throat were all reddened 
and swollen by gnat-bites. She was supposed, like her 
mother, to be a beautiful dancer. She and her sisters were 
ordered to dance before the Queen. But this too was a 
failure ; stupefied by disappointment, she danced very badly. 
And the little chattering sister who was her father's delight, 
of whose cleverness he had boasted to all the world, would 
not open her lips to speak. 

The banquet too was a terrible failure. The cookery was 
old-fashioned ; Monsieur's servants had lost touch with the 
great world ; and so, though the dinner was magnificent, it was 
not thought good, and their Majesties hardly touched it. 

" All the ladies of the Court of Blois, who were there in 
great numbers, were dressed like the dinner, not a la mode. I 
never saw the Queen and the King in such a hurry to be 
gone. It did not look polite ; but I think my father felt the 
same on his part and was very glad to be rid of us." 

Mademoiselle's last interview with her unsatisfactory 
father had a pathetic touch. Writing many years later, she 
keeps a vivid impression of this last time they met. 

" The morning we left Chambord he came and woke me 
at four o'clock. He sat on my bed and said to me, ' I think 
you will not be angry with me for waking you, as there will 
be no time to see you later. You are going on a great and 
lengthy journey ; for whatever they may say, peace is not 
made so easily, and it may not be made at all ; thus your 
travels may be longer than they think. I am old, worn out ; 
I may die during your absence. If I die, I recommend your 
sisters to you. I know you do not love Madame ; she 
might have behaved better to you. Her children are not to 
blame ; for my sake, take care of them.' He embraced me 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 261 

three or four times. I responded tenderly, for I have a kind 
heart. . . . We parted affectionately, and I fell asleep again. 
... If I did not remember all this vividly, I should believe 
it was a dream, considering all that had passed in former 
years." 

When the royal coaches drove away, Mademoiselle had 
the experience of hearing her father, her stepmother, her 
sisters, the poor hospitality of Blois, and all the small events 
of the visit, thoroughly criticised and heartily laughed at. 
She knew her world too well to be surprised. There is 
nothing new, or old, under the sun. 

Gaston proved himself a true prophet both as to the length 
of his daughter's travels and as to his own destiny. The 
Court journeyed on by slow stages to Bordeaux, and lingered 
there from August to October, while Mazarin, at St.-Jean-de- 
Luz, was treating of peace with Don Luis de Haro. In the 
meanwhile the Marechal de Gramont, with a brilliant suite — 
one of whom was the young Comte de Charny, summoned 
by Mademoiselle from his idle regiment in Flanders — was 
sent to Madrid as Ambassador Extraordinary to ask the 
Infanta's hand for Louis XIV. 

During these first weeks of delay the Court amused itself 
as best it could in the provincial city. The Queen visited 
convents ; the King reviewed his guards. The evenings 
were spent at high play, courtiers winning and losing many 
thousand crowns. Mademoiselle, who did not inherit her 
father's gambling instincts, kept away from the card-tables 
as much as possible. It is only fair, indeed, to say that she 
and Mademoiselle de Vandy, with Madame de Montausier, 
who followed the Court to Bordeaux (her husband being 
Governor of Angouleme and Saintonge), kept alive a bright 
little flame of interest in literary and intelligent subjects. 
Julie was still herself; worldly enough in her own way, but 
impatient of courtly follies and frivolous stupidity. Her 
presence had the perfume of that famous salon which lifted 
French society out of barbarism, and the influence of which 
was never equalled by its affected, degenerate successors. 



262 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

She and Mademoiselle met as old acquaintances, and evi- 
dently liked each other. The meeting resulted in Mademoi- 
selle's dashing off that UtilQ jm d esprit which will always be 
valuable as a recollection at first hand of Madame de Ram- 
bouillet and the Chambre Bleue. 

It seems that Madame de Montausier, like other friends of 
Mademoiselle, was sorry for her domestic troubles, and in 
trying to reconcile Mademoiselle de Vandy with " les com- 
tesses," addressed her by Mademoiselle de Scudery's name, 
saying, "You are very proud, Princess of Paphlagonia !" On 
which Mademoiselle remarked, " The Princess of Paphla- 
gonia is at war with Queen Gilette" — a nickname given in 
society to Madame de Fiesque— and added, " When peace is 
signed between France and Spain, you will make peace 
between these crowned heads." 

The lively sketch which was the result of this talk was 
written in three evenings at Bordeaux — five or six hours' 
work — and pleased Madame de Montausier. She also liked 
another gay " bagatelle," La Relation de I' lie invisible, which 
Mademoiselle had written during her visit to Dombes for a 
certain Chevalier de Messimieux, who amused her by begging 
for the government of an island which, like the kingdom of 
Gaston's youth, only existed in fancy. Both these clever 
trifles were admired at Bordeaux, and Madame de Pontac 
{n^e de Thou) Mademoiselle's cousin and hostess, insisted on 
having The Invisible Island printed in a little book, to be 
read by a small privileged public. 

The Court moved on from Bordeaux to Toulouse, taking a 
week on the journey. It was to Toulouse, early in Novem- 
ber, that Cardinal Mazarin brought the welcome news of 
peace with Spain. The war had lasted twenty-five years. 
The Treaty of the Pyrenees was the crowning point of his 
own and Richelieu's policy. It established France as pro- 
tector of the balance of power in Europe. 

The King's marriage with the Infanta was now a settled 
thing. But Spaniards in those days moved slowly, and King 
Philip IV did not find it accordant with his dignity to bring 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 263 

his daughter to the frontier till late in the following spring. 
The final ceremony, indeed, did not take place till June, 
when the French Court was heartily tired of waiting. At 
the first prospect of such delay it was proposed to return to 
Paris for the winter, but finally the King and Queen made up 
their minds to travel about in the South, and these winter 
excursions were pleasant enough, though " un froid enrage, 
une gelee horrible," alternated with the heat of a July sun 
on short January days. 

After Christmas, spent at Toulouse, Mademoiselle accom- 
panied the Court to Montpellier and then to Nimcs, From 
Nimes to Aries she took a route of her own by Avignon, 
being curious to see the old town of the Popes, and also, with 
her strong dislike of water, dreading the passage of the 
Rhdne from Beaucaire to Tarascon. She walked over the 
lowest bridge of the Pont du Gard, " a great work of 
the Romans . . . which cannot be understood without being 
seen." It was a serious matter to convey her three clumsy 
coaches across the ancient bridge, and only one of her coach- 
men was clever enough to manage it. 

She arrived by moonlight " sur le pont d Avignon," and 
was carried over in a chair, very much alarmed by the 
height, narrowness, and ruinous condition of the bridge, as 
well as by the rapid rushing of the wide Rhone. She was 
also exceedingly angry, the Vice-Legate and other great 
persons having turned out with the garrison and the whole 
population, for once against her wish, to receive her honour- 
ably. Torches, crowds, cannon, compliments and harangues. 
Mademoiselle, who had pictured herself in freedom and 
privacy, would answer nothing but " Je ne suis pas moi ; je 
suis inconnue. Je veux etre inconnue." The bridge safely 
crossed, she escaped into a house ; but the Vice-Legate, a 
strong and zealous man, broke open the door with his 
reverend fist and the compliments began again. She had to 
be royal and civil in spite of herself, to please the folk of 
Avignon. They caracoled round her with such enthusiasm 
and energy that a certain chevalier, commanding a troop of 



264 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

cavalry " seldom mounted," managed to tumble horse and all 
into a cellar under the street. Mademoiselle recovered her 
spirits, her ladies laughed, and all went merrily. 

She spent a day in seeing the sights of Avignon. She 
describes the palace of the Popes as a shabby old house with 
fine rooms and a beautiful view. The Vice-Legate had laid 
out his pedigree for her instruction ; she readily divined his 
thoughts, and paid him compliments on his connection with 
herself through the House of Joyeuse. She visited the walls 
of the town and various convents, churches, and chapels. 
She even looked into the Jews' synagogue and heard them sing- 
ing. " Jamais je n'ai vu un si vilain lieu ni de si vilaines gens." 

Mademoiselle revisited Avignon in the spring, when the 
Court, still waiting impatiently on the King of Spain's 
pleasure, spent Holy Week there. On this first occasion she 
was forced, against her will, to rejoin the King and Queen 
by a voyage down the Rhone, a ferry she had meant to cross 
being out of order. The Vice-Legate amiably lent her a 
boat. The South was in an unkind mood ; there had been 
so great a frost that the Rhone was frozen over ; a regiment 
of Guards had crossed on the ice from Tarascon to Beau- 
caire, and although there had been a thaw, the river was still 
arctic enough to be more dangerous than usual. 

" Necessity conquered fear," says Mademoiselle. " On 
embarking, I prayed to God from the bottom of my heart ; 
I recommended myself to Him, and began my voyage. It 
was thawing, but the frost had been very hard ; there were 
rocks of ice of frightful size in the Rhone. . . . The weather 
was beautiful, the country much to be admired. I was so 
completely reassured that I fell asleep in the boat ; so that 
the voyage to Aries seemed to me very short." 

She notes rather scornfully that every one at Court had 
the same parrot cry, " What ! You came by water ! What ! 
You were not frightened ! " At least her adventure gave 
them all something to talk about for one evening; useless, 
lively chatter ; making much of nothing, as the way of the 
Court is. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 265 

On the whole, thorough Parisian as she was, Mademoiselle 
did not care very much for the climate, the landscape, or the 
products of the South. The far-famed mutton of the Crau 
did not seem to her superior to the mutton of Beauvais. 
She had to be contented with chicken broth instead of the 
veal broth she loved. She was disappointed in the neigh- 
bourhood of Marseilles, visited by the Court in early spring : 
an ugly country with ugly olive trees ; no cultivation, no 
fruit, no salads, no good wine except liqueurs. Oranges, 
lemons, grenadines, to be sure, but not growing along the 
roadsides, as she had expected. As to beauty, " I saw 
nothing, to my fancy, to be compared to the environs of 
Paris." The galley-slaves at Marseilles, half naked and 
black with the sun, chained to their oars as they rowed the 
Court about in painted and gilded vessels, filled Made- 
moiselle with horror and pity and made her think of hell. 
And she found no pleasure in an excursion with the King to 
the Chateau d'lf, during which she and the whole party were 
soaked by an enormous wave. Neither did she at all enjoy 
later journeys in that stormy spring, the fording of flooded 
rivers, the real danger of being swept away by their terrible 
rapidity. One of her coaches was indeed nearly lost, with 
her dogs and her jewellery, not to mention the women in 
charge, who had the good sense to hurry a rescue by shout- 
ing, " Mademoiselle's jewels are here ! " 

Something of a wilderness as to nature ; rather savage, 
immoral, and frivolous ; a state of civilisation uniting the 
dangers and superstitions of the Middle Ages with the 
manners and amusements of Spain ; such, to judge by many 
vivid touches in Mademoiselle's story, was her impression of 
the beautiful land of poets, Provence. 

She found the dances tiresome and the music barbaric; 
she saw no fun in a fight between an ass and a bear, pro- 
vided at Perpignan as a diversion for their Majesties. She 
was really shocked by the customs and morals of some of 
the nuns in the convents she visited. " They are tres 
coquettes]' she says ; " they wear wimples of pleated cambric, 



266 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

put on rouge, are even painted, and boast of having lovers." 
One of these ladies introduced herself to Mademoiselle as 
the mistress of M. de Saint-Aunais, with whom she was 
acquainted, and claimed her favour on that account. " I 
was very much frightened. ... 1 did not know what to say 
to her." 

The little incident shows an enormous stride in public 
opinion since the old days of unreformed convents, of the 
Abbesses of Yeres and Avenay. The Carmelites and Port 
Royal had at least introduced a higher standard of life for 
persons professedly " religious." 

Mentioning the fountain of Vaucluse, which she does not 
appear, however, to have taken the trouble to visit. Made- 
moiselle gives her point of view as to foreign literature. 
One cannot call it insular, of course, and yet it seems dis- 
tinctly English in character ; English, that is, of a generation 
now past or passing away. After a few words about the 
" famous Italian poet, Petrarch," she adds, " As I do not know 
Italian well enough to have read the poets, I only know 
them by hearsay. As I have always thought a great deal 
of my own country, I have applied myself little to foreign 
languages. There are so many good and beautiful books in 
our own language, that I can content myself without seeking 
beyond it." 

On the 2nd of February, 1660, the Court being at Aix, 
a grand Te Deuni was sung in the cathedral and peace was 
proclaimed. In the midst of the general rejoicing Made- 
moiselle was troubled, she did not know why. She after- 
wards took it for a presentiment ; but there was enough, at 
the moment, to give matter for serious thought even to a 
Princess " unaccustomed to reflection," as Madame de Motte- 
ville described her. 

Many memories of past days came back with the Prince 
de Conde, who presented himself at Aix a few days before 
the proclamation, to make his submission and be reconciled 
with the King. His " accommodement " had been one of the 
chief points insisted on with Mazarin by the Spanish plenipo- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 267 

tentiary. There are different accounts of his reception, and 
of the amount of coldness young Louis thought necessary as 
a lesson to the great rebel, now at his feet. Mademoiselle 
was not present at the first interview. Her story shows us 
Cond6 entirely at his ease, " as if he had never stirred from 
the Court." She says that he talked openly of the wars of the 
Fronde, and that he and she laughed together at all their past 
" sottises," the King listening, and enjoying their jokes. This 
was all very well. But Cond6, it seems, understood his young 
master, and knew that his own proud day was definitely over. 
" During the rest of his life Louis XIV had no subject more 
faithful, no courtier more devoted, than this former chief of 
the Fronde." 

It was on the 2nd of February, while the joy-bells were 
ringing in the Peace of the Pyrenees and the noontide of his 
nephew's reign, that Gaston d'Orleans died at Blois, His 
faults were known to all the world, and especially to Made- 
moiselle ; even since their last parting she had had a sharp 
experience of his wrong-headed injustice. Still there must 
have been something attractive in the man. He kept his 
daughter's affection in spite of all his sins against her ; and in 
general society he did not outlive the character for kindness 
and good -nature which had always saved his popularity. 
" II 6tait bon," the world said of him. Not good, but kind; 
though indeed many of his friends had found the kindness 
only skin-deep. 

Madame de Motteville, sincere if courtly, has a charitable 
word to say of the dead Prince, known to her for many years. 
In any case, she thinks, the nation owed honour and regret 
to a son of the great Henry. But she feels it right to dwell 
on his experience of the vanity of earthly glory, on his fall 
from political power into a dismal exile, on the piety and 
repentance of his later life, on the patient firmness with 
which, like his brother Louis, he faced suffering and death. 

One need hardly believe all the stories that reached Made- 
moiselle of that tragic death-bed at Blois. Monsieur's 
secretaries shrewdly guessed that Mademoiselle, as a future 



268 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

patroness, would be more valuable than Madame, and they 
did their best, by collecting and piling on miserable details, 
to widen the breach between these two. The Duchess was a 
victim to "vapours" and a slave to regular meals. For 
years her health had been her one preoccupation. But it is 
scarcely possible that she would have gone to dinner while 
her dying husband was receiving the last sacraments. How- 
ever, the truth was bad enough. Madame Marguerite's 
heartless behaviour quite justified the Queen's and Made- 
moiselle's dislike. 

The Abbe de Ranee, Monsieur's chaplain, already on his 
way from the life of a vicious courtier to that of a reformer 
and a saint, watched over him as long as he lived ; but after- 
wards there were no lights, no fire, no linen, none of the 
usual necessaries or proper ceremonies. The priests fled from 
the bitter cold of the room. Madame and her daughters 
drove off to Paris long before etiquette allowed them to 
move. The poor corpse oi feu Monsieur was conveyed to 
Saint-Denis with a small escort, no pomp, no expenditure, 
and thus meanly he was laid to rest with his royal an- 
cestors. 

" If I had been there, all would have been done differ- 
ently ! " cries Mademoiselle. She mourned her father sin- 
cerely, though her grief took the form of a display which 
seemed almost as absurd as the long trained cloak assumed 
by the young Monsieur, the heir to Gaston's apanage^ the 
"furieux manteau " which amused Louis XIV. Made- 
moiselle furnished her rooms in grey and put her whole 
household into mourning, down to the kitchen-boys, the 
horses, and the pack-mules. " There never was anything so 
fine as the march of all this grand mourning equipage. It 
had a truly great and very magnificent air." It satisfied, at 
least, her idea of what was becoming, and made some 
amends, she thought, for the neglect and disrespect shown 
by others. 

Gaston d'Orleans left certain special treasures to his 
nephew, the King ; his collection of coins and medals, his 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 269 

books of birds, painted in miniature ; his rare flowers, plants, 
and shells. To Mademoiselle he seems to have left nothing, 
except her liberty. She made instant use of this by recalling 
her faithful servant Prefontaine, of whom his fatherly tyranny 
had deprived her. 



CHAPTER V 

I 660- I 664 

"I sat beside them sole princess in my exalted place, 
My ladies and my gentlemen stood by me on the dais : 
A mirror showed me I look old and haggard in the face." 

MADEMOISELLE BEGINS TO REFLECT — THE SPANISH MARRIAGE- 
LIFE AT THE LUXEMBOURG — MADEMOISELLE'S PORTRAIT GALLERY— 
THE KING OF PORTUGAL— A SECOND EXILE 

ENG before the end of these peregrinations in the 
South, Mademoiselle was becoming bored and weary. 
She had indeed reached her half-way house of life ; she felt 
herself left a little behind by the gay young Court with its 
new fashions and amusements; the arrangement of a possible 
marriage for her no longer interested the world much ; she 
was rather annoyed by the talk of various good matches for 
her younger sisters, poor and pretty and ill-brought-up as 
they were. She cared no longer for dancing, which had 
been her passion. Even the beloved comedie lost its charm 
when presented in a Spanish dress at St.-Jean-de-Luz, where 
the Court spent the month of May, the King of Spain 
having arrived at San Sebastian, and the Conference of the 
lie des Faisans being in full swing. 

With all Mademoiselle's conviction of th^e superiority of 
her own country and her own language, she was annoyed at 
her ignorance of Spanish, which placed her now at a decided 
disadvantage. It was not entirely for this reason, however, 
that she turned away in disgust from the Spanish plays at 
St.-Jean-de-Luz. They were put on the stage in a way that 
offended her taste. " They danced between the acts," she 
says; "... they dressed up like hermits, like monks; they 
acted funerals and marriages ; they profaned the mysteries 

270 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 271 

of religion ; and many persons were scandalised." Made- 
moiselle's religious ideas were of the north ; less familiar and 
natural, more reverent, than those of Italy or Spain. Every 
one who knows the churches of Naples, Seville, and Paris, 
knows also that such a difference exists to this day. 

Queen Anne, the Spaniard, was not shocked ; she attended 
these plays everyday, in the intervals of church services and 
visits to Cardinal Mazarin, in bed with an attack of gout. 
Mademoiselle also visited His Eminence, with whom she was 
now on good terms ; he was almost an old friend among the 
crowd of upstart new-comers at Court. 

Suddenly Mademoiselle gives us a little vignette of herself. 
She was standing with Madame de Motteville in the Car- 
dinal's window while he and the Queen talked. Looking 
out on the Bidassoa and the distant Pyrenees, these two 
ladies began to talk of the delights of solitude. " What a 
happy life one might lead in a desert ; how embarrassing and 
fatiguing the life at Court, with all the injustice of changing 
fortune ; how few are contented and how many complain of 
their lot. We had a fine field for moralising, especially as we 
added in a little Christianity." 

The Queen was ready to go, and the conversation ended, 
but Mademoiselle's reflections had only begun. Walking 
afterwards by the sea, she thought out a whole plan of soli- 
tary life for those who might retire from the Court of their 
own free will. In that peaceful desert there were to be 
no marriages and no flirtations. Poor Princess ! it was a 
pity that she could not have carried some such theories into 
action. 

She now began the correspondence with Madame de 
Motteville on the ideal life which amused and edified them 
both for many months. Some of the letters made their way 
into print, and they earned a word of praise from Sainte- 
Beuve, whose judgment of Mademoiselle is not always of the 
fairest. He treats the whole matter, of course, as the idle 
dream it was, but he allows Mademoiselle " un esprit roman- 
esque assez fin et distingu6, elev^ meme par moments." She 



272 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

considered her own letters very trifling stuff as compared 
with those of Madame de Motteville, who wrote in a learned 
and impressive style, with quotations from Italian and 
Spanish literature, from poets, historians, the Fathers, and 
Holy Scripture. " Enfin ce sont force choses ramassees," 
says Mademoiselle with admiration, unconscious that critics 
might think an ounce of originality worth a pound of 
pedantry. 

The detailed story of the marriage with its curious cere- 
monies belongs rather to the personal history of Louis XIV 
than to that of Mademoiselle. She was only one, though 
probably the most characteristic, among the great ladies who 
took part in the reception of the young Queen on French 
soil. But her lively curiosity and impatience would not 
allow her to wait at St.-Jean-de-Luz while the Spanish 
Court was at Fuentarabia. She dragged permission from the 
King and the Cardinal to attend the first grand ceremony 
incognito. 

This was not thought a dignified proceeding on the part of 
French Royalties, no grandee of Spain having crossed the 
frontier, and young Monsieur was bitterly disappointed at 
being forbidden to go with his cousin. He did his very best, 
like the dog-in-the-manger he was, to stop her going. But 
she reasoned successfully with the Cardinal : " I am of no 
consequence, I inherit nothing ; I ought not to be unlucky in 
everything. As girls are nobody in France, at least let them 
see what they wish to see ! " 

Crowds of French people, unhindered by royal etiquette, 
had crossed the river before Mademoiselle, and she and her 
party had some difficulty in finding coaches to carry them 
from the landing-place to the town-gate. The guards saluted 
politely. Cardinal Mazarin had informed Don Luis de Haro 
of Her Royal Highness's intention, so that she was not 
really unknown. But she had done her best to disguise her- 
self. She was plainly dressed in black, and the heavy rain of 
the morning had spoilt her curls. " I looked like a foreigner ; 
fair hair quite flat is not very ornamental," 




MAKIE XHERESE OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF FRANCE 

AFTER A HOKTKAIT BY BEAUIiRUN 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 273 

Inside the church she found a number of French people 
near the altar, and " took the liberty to order them about," 
forgetting her incognito. This evident importance made 
some one offer her a chair, which she refused, and became an 
ordinary spectator of the ceremony. 

It consisted of low Mass, followed by the reading of the 
papal dispensation and the Infanta's formal marriage, without 
ring or joining of hands, to Don Luis de Haro as proxy for 
the King of France. The church was full of bishops and 
clergy and Spanish grandees, but most of the spectators were 
French. Mademoiselle was well amused by watching the 
King of Spain and his daughter, who also stared hard at 
her. She was impressed by the King's slow and dignified 
movements, by the glorious table diamond, " the Mirror of 
Portugal," with which his hat was caught up, and the pear- 
shaped pearl, " the Pilgrim," depending from it. She liked 
his face, good and worn. She liked the Infanta's looks too, 
and she noticed — with Madame de Motteville, also present — 
her resemblance to her aunt, Anne of Austria. The portraits 
show it a little ; but Marie-Therese, with her drooping eye- 
lids and heavy cheeks and amiable but stupid expression, 
never had a touch of her aunt's peculiar charm. Still, she 
was a fair, blue-eyed girl, with a beauty of youth and good- 
ness which triumphed over the hideous dress of her nation. 
Madame de Motteville was shocked by the uncovered 
shoulders of the Spanish ladies, their badly cut gowns with 
the enormous hoops, called " guardinfante." " It seemed," 
she says, " as if several barrel-hoops were sewn inside their 
petticoats, except that these are round, and the guardinfante 
was a little flattened behind and before, standing out at the 
sides. When they walked, this machine jogged up and down, 
and had a very ugly effect." 

Madame de Motteville, being able to talk Spanish, had the 
honour to exchange a few words with her new Queen, and 
Mademoiselle joined her and other French ladies in the room 
where Marie Therese was dining. She acknowledged Made- 
moiselle's courtesy with most amiable smiles. After dinner, 

T 



274 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

rising from table, she said, " I must embrace that unknown 
lady," and would not allow Mademoiselle to kiss her hand. 
Later on they had an interview and some familiar talk. 
Mademoiselle was charmed with the girl, and hurried back 
to St.-Jean-de-Luz to report her delightful adventures. 
King, Queen, and Cardinal were interested and enchanted. 
" You have excellent taste," they said, with many other kind 
expressions. 

The further ceremonies were not quite so pleasant. Made- 
moiselle was extremely angry with some of the arrangements 
as to precedence and train-bearing at the final conference on 
the lie des Faisans and the French marriage. She had a 
victorious skirmish with the Princess Palatine, who presumed 
to appear in a royal train. She was furious that her two 
young sisters, who had been sent from Paris, were without 
Dukes to carry their trains. Finally she gave up her own 
Duke, accepting the service of the Cardinal's nephew, Philippe 
Mancini, and the other Orleans Princesses were accommo- 
dated with a Count and a Marquis, 

The King's regiments of Guards, French and Swiss, lined 
the road on each side of a raised artificial causeway, along 
which the royal procession passed to the church. The sight 
of these soldiers was nothing new to Mademoiselle ; but she 
had a reason for mentioning two companies of gentlemen- 
at-arms, called " les becs-de-corbin " from the shape of their 
halberds, who were only drawn up on the greatest occasions, 
and whom she had never seen before, no doubt owing to her 
absence from Louis XIV's coronation. These companies 
dated from Louis XI and Charles VIII, and their command 
was hereditary in two great families, those of Lauzun and 
Crevant. 

It was perhaps the first time that Mademoiselle took 
special notice of the keen little Gascon soldier and courtier, 
Antonin Nompar de Caumont, then known as Comte de 
Puyguilhem (pronounced Peguilin) afterwards as Comte de 
Lauzun, who was to be the curse of her later life. In 1660, 
and for years afterwards, the notion of marrying one of her 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 275 

cousin's subjects would have been dismissed with scorn. 
But even then, it seems, she noticed the fiery Gascon with 
approval. There was some difficulty as to precedence with 
the Marquis d'Humieres, commanding the other company 
of becs-de-corbin. Lauzun, whose company was of older 
date, carried his point "d'une grande hauteur." Made- 
moiselle, writing down these recollections while the unhappy 
man lay shut up for her sake in the fortress of Pignerol, 
observes that he always had the grand air in everything. 

She travelled back with the Court to Fontainebleau, enjoy- 
ing an earthquake in the Landes by the way. The pleasure 
of her return to Paris, after a year's absence, was much spoilt 
by disagreeable scenes with Madame, who had established 
herself and her daughters in the best apartments at the 
Luxembourg, occupied by Mademoiselle since her return 
from exile. 

The matter was arranged, and the two separate households 
inhabited the palace till Madame's death in 1672. She was a 
dismal neighbour, unpopular and melancholy, more and more 
subject to " vapours " as the years rolled on. She and Made- 
moiselle were never at all in sympathy, and saw as little as 
possible of each other, but her three girls were constantly 
with their half-sister till they married. Marguerite, the 
eldest. Mademoiselle d'Orleans, a wild girl for whom Made- 
moiselle had some real affection, though she worried her a 
good deal, married the Grand Duke of Tuscany and was one 
of the eccentric characters of the second half of the century. 
Elisabeth, Mademoiselle d'Alengon, the least attractive of 
the family, remained with her mother till she was twenty-one, 
and was then married in a great hurry to Louis-Joseph, Due 
de Guise, nephew and successor of Mademoiselle's hero-uncle, 
a delicate boy of seventeen, entirely under the dominion of 
his powerful aunt, Mademoiselle de Guise. Frangoise, Made- 
moiselle de Valois, her father's pet, was married at fifteen to 
the Duke of Savoy, and died a year later. 

At the Luxembourg, during most of the ten years that 
followed the King's marriage, Mademoiselle's life was cheer- 



276 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

ful and agreeable. In the summer she usually visited her 
favourite Forges, then proceeding to one or another of her 
estates, and managing their complicated affairs with keen 
good sense. But in her Paris winters she was the centre of 
a society none the less pleasant because its tone of mind and 
taste was that of an older day. " Her salon," says Madame 
Arvede Barine, " became the first in Paris, the most interest- 
ing and the most recherche." In the midst of such a society 
she almost forgot the passage of years ; a new kind of posi- 
tion, owing to her own talents and character, lessened the 
pain of a dwindling personal importance at Court and in the 
politics of Europe. 

During the first year or two Mademoiselle's salon was 
made extremely gay by the presence of the Orleans Prin- 
cesses and the girls and boys who gathered round them, and 
who found Madame, with her dulness, her prejudices, and 
her hatred of noise, a terrible wet blanket on their enjoy- 
ment. Among the young girls of this company was Louise 
de la Valliere, a gentle, lovely child of fifteen. In conse- 
quence of her mother's second marriage with M. de Saint- 
Remy, a gentleman in the service of Gaston d'Orleans, she 
had been brought up at Blois with his children. 

A very frequent guest at the Luxembourg was Francois 
Timoldon de Choisy, the idolised youngest son of Made- 
moiselle's clever and scheming acquaintance, Madame 
de Choisy, and the pet playfellow of young Monsieur. He 
was now a lad of about seventeen, a budding abb^, frivolous, 
effeminate, and clever. His foolish mother hac^ strengthened 
his natural tendencies by constantly dressing him as a girl, 
to make him a fitter companion for the weak little Prince, 
brought up by selfish political caution in the same unworthy 
way. The Abb6's father, who unluckily died in his childhood, 
had been Chancellor to Gaston d'Orleans, and he was thus a 
privileged person at the Luxembourg. We owe to his lively 
Memoirs some details of the society there in the years before 
marriage and death had carried away the two brightest of 
the young Princesses, and before Mademoiselle's own agree- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 277 

able life had been broken in upon by a new political 
tyranny. 

Mademoiselle says : " Since my sisters were young, and 
fond of jumping and dancing, the evenings when there was 
no ballet or acting at the Louvre they danced to my violins. 
The ball was held in a room as far as possible from that of 
Madame." 

The Abb6 de Choisy says : " We played games every day 
at the Luxembourg : blind's-man's buff, hide-and-seek ; no 
cards, it was not the fashion there, but we laughed a hundred 
times as much ; there were violins, but we generally stopped 
them and danced to singing : " an enchanting experience, as 
everyone who ever had it will confess. 

The Abbe speaks disrespectfully of Mademoiselle, under 
whose wing he could enjoy himself without the risk of losing 
his money; more than could be said of the Court of the Louvre. 
He calls her " la vieille," and declares that she would not 
allow her sister Marguerite to marry Prince Charles of 
Lorraine, who was desperately in love with her, because she 
wished to marry him herself. This was the gossip of the day, 
reported by a graceless chatterbox. Mademoiselle is so 
frank about herself and everybody else, that one does not see 
why her own story should not be believed. 

The Duke of Lorraine spent a winter in Paris with Prince 
Charles, a handsome, awkward lad, his nephew and heir. 
Both were constantly at the Luxembourg ; but both pre- 
ferred Mademoiselle's society to that of Madame, their sister 
and aunt. The Duke, at sixty, was more eccentric than 
ever ; he slept anywhere, dined off " faience," and fell vio- 
lently in love with a girl called Marianne Pajot, the daughter 
of Mademoiselle's apothecary. He would even have married 
her, but his family appealed to the King, who clapped her 
into prison ; and after some days of despair and fury the 
Duke fell in love with somebody else. 

He was more worldly-wise for his nephew than for himself. 
It was very natural that Prince Charles should lose his heart 
to the young Princess, " belle comme le jour," beside whom, 



278 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

according to the Abbe de Choisy, " la vieille Mademoiselle " 
looked like a grandmother. It is the way of seventeen to 
find thirty-five superannuated. But the Duke had his eye 
on the Montpensier fortune. On his knees he implored 
Mademoiselle to marry his nephew, and she, accustomed to 
look at marriage as a political combination, rather favoured 
the proposal. If the House of Lorraine was not actually a 
reigning House, it was one of the most distinguished in 
Europe. Daughters of France had married into it, and a 
Prince of Lorraine was no unworthy match for Henry IV's 
granddaughter. Mademoiselle declares that she had no idea, 
till enlightened by officious friends, that Prince Charles and 
her sister were in love with each other. That marriage was 
out of the question, for the Duke of Lorraine would not con- 
sent to it, and the Tuscan match was already arranged. But 
Mademoiselle, with the swift, romantic inconsequence which 
puzzled her contemporaries, whisked round suddenly and 
refused the Lorraine alliance. Prince Charles, honest boy, 
in taking a respectful leave of her, only found words to 
lament the loss of his splendid fortune. " This was all he 
cared for . . . " says Mademoiselle. " I answered very kindly, 
and thought him a fool." 

But it was not only dancing, games, and young flirtations 
which made Mademoiselle's salon so interesting to a large 
part of society. Those who belonged to " la vieille cour " 
in age, in taste, or in sympathy, who preferred old Father 
Corneille to the rising light of Quinault, Pradon, even 
Racine, who loved to breathe what air was left of indepen- 
dent days before the Fronde, before an absolute King had 
drilled the Court after one model, discouraging adventure 
and killing romance — these people found themselves at 
home at the Luxembourg, where they talked as they liked, 
discussing literature and ideas with a freedom impossible 
elsewhere. Among Mademoiselle's guests, many of them 
old habitues of the Hotel Rambouillet, were Madame de 
Sevigne, Madame de la Fayette, La Rochefoucauld, Madame 
de Thianges, Madame de Maure ; the beautiful Eleonore de 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 279 

Rohan, Abbess of Caen, daughter of Madame de Mont- 
bazon ; the Duchesse de Schomberg, nee de Hautefort ; and 
such representative men of the old tradition as Chapelain, 
Menage, Benserade, Boyer. 

It was at the Luxembourg that the famous literary Por- 
traits first invented by Mademoiselle de Scudery were read 
and enjoyed before they became generally popular. They 
were a special delight to Mademoiselle, who wrote many 
herself, or commissioned her friends to write them. The 
amusing collection now known by her name — La Galerie des 
Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier — was first printed 
under the care of Segrais the poet, gentleman in ordinary to 
Mademoiselle, in 1659. It is Segrais, by the way — described 
by his royal mistress as " une maniere de savant, de bel 
esprit, qui etait a moi" — to whom we owe Les Divertisse- 
ments de la Princesse Aurdlie, an account, under this clever 
and thin disguise, of her Court in exile at Saint-Fargeau. 
Many additions were made to the first collection of Portraits, 
and they are invaluable to any one who cares to know 
Mademoiselle's world and its ways of thinking. According 
to the old title, we have kings and queens, princes, prin- 
cesses, duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, and all the most 
illustrious lords and ladies of France. In reality, the book 
contains all this and more : cardinals, bishops, abbots and 
abbesses, academicians, men of science and letters, precieuses, 
and many nameless persons who are none the less interesting 
as types of their day. 

M[ademoiselle's own portrait of herself is thoroughly 
characteristic, and all that we know of her bears witness 
to its general truth. She begins by saying that she prefers 
nature to art, and would rather be laughed at than pitied. 

" I will begin with my exterior. I am tall, neither fat nor 
thin, of a fine and easy figure. I am good-looking and well 
made ; my hands and arms not beautiful ; but a fine skin 
and handsome neck ; my hair is of a brown fairness ; my 
face is long and well-shaped ; nose large and aquiline ; 
mouth neither large nor small, but expressive and agreeable j 



28o A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

lips bright red ; teeth neither pretty nor hideous ; my eyes 
are blue, neither large nor small, but shining, sweet, and 
proud, like my whole appearance. My air is lofty, without 
arrogance. I am civil and familiar in manner, yet so as to 
gain respect rather than to lose it. My dress is very negli- 
gent, but never dirty ; I hate that ; I am clean ; and well 
dressed or not, everything I put on becomes me. I talk a 
good deal, without talking nonsense or using bad words.'' 
Here, it seems likely. Mademoiselle is not quite borne out by 
facts. "... I do not talk of what I do not understand, like 
talkative people generally. ... I pique myself on being a 
good friend and very constant in my friendships, when I am 
lucky enough to find persons of merit whose humour suits 
my own ; for I do not choose to suffer from the inconstancy 
of others. ... I am a dangerous enemy, being passionate and 
violent, and this, my birth also considered, may well cause 
my enemies to tremble ; but I have a good and noble soul. 
I am incapable of any low or dark action. ... I am melan- 
choly ; I like reading good solid books ; trifles bore me, 
except in verse ; I love that, of whatever kind it may be. . . . 
I like the world, and the conversation of well-bred people, 
and yet I am not too much bored with others ; persons of 
my quality must bear constraint, being born for others 
rather than for themselves. . . . Beyond everything I like 
soldiers, and to hear them talk of their profession ; and 
though I have said that I talk of nothing I do not under- 
stand, I must confess that I enjoy talking about war ; I feel 
myself very brave. I have much courage and ambition. . . . 
I am prompt in my resolutions, and firm in keeping them. 
To me nothing seems difficult in the service of my friends, 
or in obedience to those on whom I depend. I am dis- 
interested ; I am incapable of any baseness, and I am made 
so indifferent to worldly things by a contempt for others 
and a good opinion of myself, that I would pass my whole 
life in solitude sooner than restrain my proud temper in 
anything, even if my fortune depended on it. I like being 
alone ; I show little complaisance and expect much ; I like 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 281 

to please and to oblige ; I also like to vex and to torment, . . . 
I love violin music better than any other ; I used to care 
more for dancing than I do now, but I dance very well ; 
I hate playing cards and I love active games ; I can do all 
sorts of needlework ; it is one of my amusements, with hunt- 
ing and riding. ... I am not devout, I wish I was, and 
indeed I am very indifferent to the world, but I fear this 
is not true detachment, for I do not despise myself, and it 
seems to me that self-love is not a quality useful in devo- 
tion. ... I apply myself earnestly to my affairs. ... I love 
rule and order in the least things. I do not know if I am 
liberal, I know I like to be pompous and splendid, and to 
give to deserving persons and to those I love ; but as this 
is done to please my own fancy, I do not know if it can be 
called liberality. ... As to gallantry, I have no inclination 
that way, and they even find fault with me because the 
poetry of passion is that which I like least, for I am not 
tender-hearted ; but if they say that I am equally insensible 
to friendship and to love, I deny it, for I do love those who 
deserve it, and I am the most grateful person in the 
world. . . ." 

Such was the Princess to whom her cousin Louis XIV, re- 
garding her as a mere chattel, a rich old maid, whose only 
use was that of a political tool, sent his royal command that 
she should marry the King of Portugal. 

The full credit of this idea seems to belong to Louis him- 
self Mazarin was dead, lamented by few ; he was master 
of himself and of his kingdom, and it did not enter into his 
mind that any one, certainly not one of his own family, could 
resist his will. By this marriage he meant to help and 
encourage Portugal, whose independence, lately regained, was 
threatened by the power of Spain. The Peace of the 
Pyrenees so lately signed, an actual renewal of war with 
Spain was out of the question. 

M. de Turenne, who had always been friendly with 
Mademoiselle, was sent to her by the King to open the 
subject by a seeming suggestion from himself. He asked for 



282 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

an interview, but was so late in arriving that she nearly lost 
her patience and went out. His coach drove in as she was 
coming downstairs. 

The worthy soldier with his frowning face was not a very 
clever diplomatist. Sitting by the fire in Mademoiselle's 
cabinet, he poured protestations of faithful friendship into 
her impatient ears. In downright fashion she asked, 
"What is it all about?" 

" I wish to marry you," said Turenne. 

" That won't be easy," she answered. " I am content as I 
am." 

" I wish to make you a queen ; but listen, let me tell you 
all, and then speak. I wish to make you Queen of 
Portugal." 

" Fie ! I'll have nothing to do with it." 

" Young women of your quality should have no will," said 
Turenne solemnly. " Their will should be the King's will." 

" Do you come to me from the King? " 

Turenne lied boldly. It was his own idea, he declared ; 
and he laid the affair before Mademoiselle in the most 
favourable aspect possible, pointing out how entirely she 
would rule the young King, what independence she would 
enjoy, how King Louis would send a French army into the 
country, to be commanded by officers of her own choice ; 
he used, indeed, all arguments likely to appeal to her, and 
drew a very much too favourable portrait of Alfonso VI 
himself. That he was a fool, with no special characteristics, 
was rather an advantage in a husband. Neither could it be 
denied that he had been born paralysed on one side ; but 
this defect could hardly be seen when he was dressed — and 
no wonder, if he wore seven suits at once — except by a 
dragging of the leg and a difficulty in using the arm. The 
truth was — Mademoiselle probably knew it — that the miser- 
able youth was utterly ignorant, violent, brutal, cowardly, 
unhealthy, a glutton and a drunkard, with personal habits 
that disgusted even an uncritical age. 

No ! Mademoiselle laughed in Turenne's face. She was 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 283 

clever enough to see through his protestations. " Je vous 
trouve un grand credit ! " Could he really dispose of the 
King's troops in this style, to forward an idea of his own ? 
And her political sense objected to the risky position of a 
buffer between France and Spain, 

" I would rather be Mademoiselle in France with five hun- 
dred thousand livres of income, asking nothing of the Court, 
honoured in my person and my quality. ... If one is bored 
at Court, one goes into the country to hold one's own Court 
there. One builds ; one amuses one's self. To be one's own 
mistress, that is happiness, for one does what one pleases." 

Turenne became rather angry. He reminded her that 
even Mademoiselle was the King's subject, and that, for 
those who did not obey his will, he had the power to make 
life very uncomfortable. 

" He may drive them from one end of the kingdom to the 
other. He may imprison them in their own house or may 
send them to a convent. They may be forced after much 
suffering to do what they might have done with a good grace. 
What have you to say to that ? " 

" That such as you do not threaten such as me ; that I 
know my own affairs ; that if the King spoke so to me, 
I should know how to answer him." 

But it soon appeared that the King was really set on this 
odious plan. Mademoiselle found plenty of sympathy, even 
from the Queen-mother, who said it v^as a terrible pity, but 
" he is the master ; I can say nothing." A heavy silence 
reigned throughout the spring. Louis XIV could not 
actually force his cousin into such a marriage, but he could 
make her live under the thunder-cloud of his displeasure. 
He was not, perhaps, quite convinced of her disobedience, 
her firm resolve not to be married for " le service du Roi," till 
the Court dispersed for the summer. When she went away 
to Forges for her usual cure they parted very coldly. A few 
vi^eeks later she was ordered into exile at Saint-Fargeau. 
There, and at Eu, she spent the next two years. Her friends 
did not fail her, and she found amusement in building, re- 



284 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

storing, and decorating her houses. But there is no doubt 
that this exile was much duller than the former one, though 
she bravely resolved to spend its long country winters " sans 
en avoir aucun chagrin." She was older, had lost some of her 
high spirit, cared little now for acting and games. Reading, 
writing, needlework, and walking could hardly fill the life of 
a princess of her years, while the French Court was growing 
more brilliant every day in the gorgeous meridian time of 
Louis XIV. 



CHAPTER VI 

I 664- I 670 

" II parlait fort bien de la guerre, 
Des cieux, du globe et de la terre, 
Du droit civil, du droit canon, 

" Et connaissait assez les choses 
Par leurs effets et par leurs causes. 
— Etait-il honnete homme ? . . . Oh! non." 

THE TITLE OF " MADEMOISELLE " — COURT AMUSEMENTS — AT THE 
LUXEMBOURG — THE DEATH OF ANNE OF AUSTRIA — THE FANCY FOR 
M. LE LAUZUN — AN ADVENTURE IN THE FLOODS — THE DEATH OF 
MADAME — " C'EST VOUS ! " 

IT was about this time — a point in the Princess's story 
not always realised — that her world began to call her 
La Grande Mademoiselle. Not entirely owing to her un- 
usual height or her airs of imperious majesty ; rather to the 
fact that La Petite Mademoiselle had entered on the field. 

The King's brother had married Princess Henrietta Stuart 
in 1661. Louis's brutal remark is well known — " Mon frere, 
vous allez epouser tons les os des Saints Innocents " — the 
great cemetery of Paris — but it is also known that he him- 
self was soon captivated by the grace and charm of that 
little thin girl. Marie Louise, eldest child of the young 
Monsieur and Madame, afterwards unhappily married to 
Charles II of Spain, took of course the title oi Mademoiselle, 
which belonged by right to the King's eldest niece. As she 
grew up, some distinction was necessary between her and 
her famous cousin ; and this is why Gaston's daughter lives 
in all the history and memoirs of the time as La Grande 
Mademoiselle. 

She returned from her second exile through the inter- 

285 



286 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

vention of Colbert, in the late summer of 1664, and joined 
the Court at Fontainebleau. She was cordially welcomed. 
Crowds of great and small, headed by Monsieur and the 
Prince de Conde, came driving to meet her along the forest 
roads. The King's clemency was popular, and Mademoiselle 
had a right to feel triumphant, though she remarks with a 
touch of very rare cynicism, " L'on a tant d'amis, quand on 
revient." 

The Queen-mother received her affectionately, the King 
with a joking friendliness that seems to have satisfied her ; 
she concluded that he was a little ashamed of himself He 
administered kindness and flattery, and took her out on the 
canal /aire medianoche with Madame and Mademoiselle de la 
Valliere, music and lanterns ; this merry midnight meal be- 
tween fast and feast-day was a favourite amusement of his. 
Like other fashions beginning at the top of society, it was 
comically misunderstood as it filtered down to the bourgeoisie. 
Madame de S6vigne tells the story of a good lady at Rennes, 
who at four o'clock in the afternoon boasted that she had 
just fait medianoche with the wife of a President of the 
Council. " Cela est bien d'une sotte bete qui veut etre a la 
mode," says the amused Marquise. 

Mademoiselle's uncle, the Due de Guise, had died during 
her exile, and she appeared at Court in deep mourning for 
him. The sight of crepe and serge annoyed the Queen- 
mother. " Too deep," she remarked. " One does not do 
that for people so far beneath one"; and actually sent Made- 
moiselle to change her dress. There was no appeal from 
Anne of Austria in matters of etiquette ; but Mademoiselle 
thought that the remark would scarcely have gratified her 
stepmother, or any of the House of Lorraine. Neither did 
it suit her natural loyalty to those of her own blood. " Bien 
que tres altiere," says Saint-Simon, she was never ashamed of 
her smallest relations. 

It was becoming improbable that Mademoiselle would 
ever marry. Her own proud and critical humour was 
against it, as well as the passage of years. Possible matches 




MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER 

FROM AN ENGKAVING BY N. DE l'aRMESSIN 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 287 

were becoming fewer. Charles II of England had married a 
Portuguese princess ; later on, a daughter of the Duchesse de 
Nemours, 7ice Elisabeth de Vendome, took Mademoiselle's 
place on the undesired throne of Portugal. But Louis XIV 
had not given up the idea of finding a useful husband for his 
rich cousin. He proposed that she should marry the Duke 
of Savoy, lately a widower through the death of her youngest 
half-sister. This match was seriously considered by Made- 
moiselle, but the Duke himself was not attracted, and the 
matter soon dropped. The Prince de Conde had had the 
assurance to propose that she should marry his son, the Due 
d'Enghien, then a lad of eighteen. She excused herself on 
account of the difference in age, but confided to her Memoirs 
that the young Prince was far from attractive ; ugly and of a 
low appearance, as clever as his grandfather, but even more 
mean and miserly. As long as Mademoiselle's affections 
were free, she was a shrewd judge of character. 

We may imagine her settled once more in her apartments 
at the Luxembourg, her salon constantly open to all her 
friends of the old world. Some of her prejudices kept her a 
little behind the times, yet she never ceased to be an im- 
portant and conspicuous figure in society. Her affection for 
Corneille, though it blinded her to the merits of Racine, did 
not now hinder her from appreciating Moliere. Le Tartuffe 
was acted at the Luxembourg in 1669, at the very gay 
wedding of Mademoiselle de Crequi, one of Mademoiselle's 
maids of honour, with the Comte de Jarnac. After being 
interdicted for two years because of supposed disrespect 
to the Church, it had become the most fashionable play in 
Paris. 

Mademoiselle seems to have cared little for the new in- 
vention of the Opera, which enchanted society about this 
time, although she highly admired the genius of its creator. 
The famous Jean-Baptiste Lulli owed his first appearance in 
France to her. As a boy, he was brought from Florence at 
her request by the Chevalier de Guise, that she might learn 
Italian by talking with him. He was first a footman, then a 



288 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

musician in her household, and though she never learned 
much Italian, the lovely airs he composed without any 
science of music, his fine acting, and especially his wonderful 
dancing, delighted her. He left her service, passing into that 
of the King, when she was exiled after the Fronde. He 
arrived at his full fame years later, when Quinault and he, with 
their new conjunction of sentimental drama and suggestive 
music, lifted French society quite off its prosaic feet. Made- 
moiselle, however, praises Lulli chiefly as " un grand baladin." 

One is hardly en plein Louis Quatorze, perhaps, till after 
the death of the one person who had any influence on his 
moral character in earlier life, at least so far as that he could 
not flaunt his mistresses openly before her eyes, his mother, 
Anne of Austria. The bitter January of 1666 saw the end 
of her long and terribly painful illness. She bore it, without 
any alleviations, rather with extra suffering caused by 
ignorant doctors, like a brave Christian woman. When it 
became evident that no human skill could save her life, the 
King consulted those near to him. Mademoiselle among them, 
as to whether the shrine of Sainte-Genevieve should be 
brought down and carried through the streets. Mademoiselle 
was against it. 

" I told him it seemed to me that miracles were not things 
of every day ; that the Queen's illness was incurable, except 
by a miracle ; that in our time they were no longer per- 
formed ; that we were not good enough to draw down such 
blessings. He said, ' That is my opinion; but every one 
wishes for it ; they say it is the custom.' He could not 
decide; but the next day he came to tell me that it was to be 
brought down." 

Then, whether she expected a miracle or not, Made- 
moiselle hastened to do what she believed her duty, joining 
in the processions which marched from all sides of Paris to 
meet the sacred relic and convey it through the streets. She 
also attended a special service in her own church, Saint- 
Severin. Saint-Sulpice was naturally the parish church of 
the Luxembourg, but Mademoiselle had returned from her 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 289 

last exile in a church-going frame of mind, and a quarrel 
with the clergy of Saint-Sulpice, who were very friendly 
with her stepmother, was the consequence. Archbishop de 
Perefixe — the Gondi reign in Paris was over^ — ^wisely per- 
mitted the Princess and her household to perform their reli- 
gious duties at the ancient church of Saint-Severin. 

Those were sad days for Mademoiselle, made sadder still 
by the dying Queen's forgetfulness of one who had been 
"brought up so near to her." Anne's farewell words were 
only for her two sons and their wives ; nothing for Made- 
moiselle and nothing for the Prince de Cond6. Historians 
say that she never forgave the Fronde, and yet such inten- 
tional vengeance at such an hour seems unlikely. The 
poor Queen's mortal weakness, the great crowd all night in 
the death-chamber, the busy priests with their ceremonies, 
the fainting King, Monsieur, broken-hearted, at his mother's 
pillow ; it is not much wonder if the Princess, too much 
troubled, as she herself says, to know what she was doing, 
found herself passed over in the pushing, staring confusion 
round that death-bed. 

She was not forgotten in the painful duties that followed ; 
on the contrary, they depended chiefly on her. Instantly 
after the Queen-mother had breathed her last her sons fled, 
the King to Versailles, Monsieur to Saint-Cloud, while the 
great bell of Notre Dame tolled solemnly over Paris. Made- 
moiselle, as first Princess of the blood, took the leading place 
in the funeral pomps at Saint-Denis, starting from the Louvre 
at seven o'clock in the morning. She was four hours on the 
way ; the Queen's coffin still longer, for the monks went out 
in chanting procession to meet it. 

" It was horribly cold," writes Mademoiselle. " I never 
was so cold. I thought I had the fever ; for the excessive 
cold threw me into a violent heat at the church door ; we 
were there a long time, for M. d'Auch made a harangue and 
the Prior replied. I was so tired and exhausted that I 
leaned my head against the bier and remained so a long time 
without knowing it. . . ." 
u 



290 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Whatever the hfelong coldness between them, Mademoi- 
selle had good reason to mourn for Anne of Austria. If the 
Queen had lived a few years longer — she was only sixty-four 
when she died — her great influence and her sense of royal 
dignity might have saved Mademoiselle from the foolish 
entanglement which made her society's laughing-stock and 
ruined all her later years. 

She was nearly forty when the Queen-mother died. In the 
days of Louis XIV, a middle-aged, unmarried woman, 
especially of high birth, was a rarity. Great ladies either 
married or became " religious " ; a half-way house hardly 
existed, except for people of real eccentricity, who lived 
apart from the world in their own way. But Mademoiselle's 
eccentricity was not of this kind, and whatever theories she 
may have played with in her correspondence, she had no real 
wish to shut herself out from society, being at the same time 
quite aware that every year would make her position more 
difficult. 

After Queen Anne's death she was constantly at Court. 
Her latest exile had taught her that life was hardly liveable 
outside her royal cousin's good graces. He was now very 
kind to her ; Monsieur kept up all his old friendliness ; 
Henrietta, who formerly disliked her, had come to confess — 
" Quand on vous connoit, on vous aime " ; the poor Queen, 
neglected and sulky, was always fond of her ; last, not least, 
she was on terms of cordial intimacy with Madame de 
Montespan. This means that she accepted the new Court 
atmosphere to the full, taking the presence of " the ladies " 
as a necessary part of life. For her, the King's divinity 
could do no wrong ; now, as ever, Louis had no more devout 
worshipper than his cousin of Montpensier. 

And Madame de Montespan, with all her many sins, was 
an amazingly agreeable woman. Mademoiselle had known 
her all her life ; naturally or not, she seems to have found 
that present developments made little difference. The care 
of her own morals had always been enough for her. She 
went so far as to scold M. de Montespan for his "extra- 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 291 

ordinary conduct " at Saint-Germain in making a scene with 
the King, comparing His Majesty to David and threatening 
him with God's judgments if he did not restore his wife. 

" You are mad," said Mademoiselle to this very extrava- 
gant man. " II ne faut point faire tous ces contes. They 
would come better from your uncle, the Archbishop of Sens." 

She thought her harangue admirable, but M. de Montespan 
went on raving. And it is interesting to notice that the 
irreproachable Madame de Montausier — who had been ill 
ever since she saw a ghost, a tall woman coming to meet her 
in a dark passage of the Tuileries — was also extremely 
angry with the " fury and insolence " of M. de Montespan. 

Still, Mademoiselle was not altogether happy. However 
welcome the young Court might make her, it did not become 
easier, year by year, for a decent woman of her age to throw 
herself into all its wild diversions. She began to feel a little 
lonely ; it occurred to her, no doubt, that she might have 
done well to marry in her younger days ; even foggy Eng- 
land may have had a thought of regret. She was conscious 
that people were beginning to speculate on the great in- 
heritance which must fall to somebody one of these days, 
when la vieille Mademoiselle was dead. A fine division of 
estates there would be ; Eu here, Saint-Fargeau there, and 
all the rest in stately procession. The will of this royal old 
maid would be a nine-days' wonder. 

Then, her mind prepared by a certain restless discontent, 
she took a sudden fancy ; to no prince of her own degree, 
no " old courtier of the Queen," but the " King's young 
courtier." There was nothing very ridiculous in it, after all. 
It is not impossible, or even extraordinary, for a woman to 
fall in love at forty-two ; many a happy marriage has begun 
as late as this ; and the Comte de Lauzun was only about 
five years younger than Mademoiselle de Montpensier. He 
was a daring soldier, and had distinguished himself specially 
in the short war with Spain, which ended in 1668 with the 
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Mademoiselle had already 
noticed the little man with favour, and it was with growing 



292 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

interest that she heard of his exploits and adventures in that 
war ; how he made his two thousand dragoons dismount and 
deliver a flank attack which routed the enemy ; how he was 
wounded, his clothes torn to rags, but would not give the 
surgeons time to dress his wounds before he was off to fight 
again. After this campaign Lauzun was made Captain of 
the King's Guards, He would have been Grand Master 
of the Artillery but for the intervention of Louvois, who 
obtained that place for the Comte du Lude — " fort grand 
seigneur," says Mademoiselle, in birth, air, and estate; a 
brother of her early friend the Duchesse de Roquelaure, who 
had died still beautiful and young. 

Lauzun was a favourite with his royal master, and in his 
own peculiar way a singularly brilliant creature. He was a 
curious mixture of brutality and charm, hard as iron, clever 
as the devil, a fascinating talker, a desperate flirt. His love 
affairs were legion, but few cared for him without having 
cause to repent it ; though he could be kind and generous, 
he was malicious to the last degree, and more insolent, even 
to the King himself, than any courtier of the time. Louis 
forgave a great deal from his dashing little favourite, be- 
lieving in his personal devotion to himself; but one day 
Lauzun irritated him so far that he flung his cane out of 
the window, saying that he should be sorry to strike a 
gentleman. 

The story of Lauzun's behaviour to Madame de Monaco, 
as told by Saint-Simon, is characteristic. She was a Gram- 
mont, sister of the famous Comte de Guiche, and an 
intimate friend of the young Duchesse d'Orleans. Lauzun 
was desperately in love with her, and believed he had cause 
to be jealous of the King. 

" One summer afternoon, having gone to Saint-Cloud, he 
found Madame and her Court sitting on the ground for cool- 
ness, and Madame de Monaco half lying down, one hand 
flung out with the palm upwards. Lauzun begins to flirt 
with the ladies, and turns round so cleverly that he plants 
his heel in the hollow of Madame de Monaco's hand, makes 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 293 

a pirouette, and walks off. Madame de Monaco had the 
strength not to scream, and to hold her peace." 

It was in the summer of 1669 that Mademoiselle began to 
find great pleasure and amusement in talking to M. de 
Lauzun. She found the little hero most agreeable ; his 
conversation was charming, his power of expressing 
himself quite extraordinary. He paid her delightful 
compliments ; at the same time, understanding only too 
well the simple character he had to deal with, he spoke 
with the fearless candour of a friend. After a few months 
of an acquaintance which became ever more intimate, she 
began to confess to herself that it would be difficult to live 
without him. " I began to regard him," she says, " as the 
best and most agreeable man in the world, and to know that 
I should find happiness with such a husband, whom I could 
love, and who would love me ; that no one had ever been 
such a friend to me ; that I must for once in my life taste 
the sweetness of feeling myself loved by some one worth 
loving in return." 

She allowed herself to think and to dream ; planning all 
that she could do for him, and persuading herself that her 
old master Corneille, who had taught her to despise the weak- 
ness of love, would have said that in this case two people 
were predestined for each other. The more she thought, the 
more brightly the idea smiled upon her. The chief difficulty 
was that the first advances must come from herself. But a 
happy opportunity seemed to offer in a report that the King 
thought once more of marrying her to a Prince of Lorraine. 
She resolved to discuss the whole subject of marriage with 
this new friend, whose proud airs suggested that he might be 
" I'empereur de tout le monde." 

Lauzun was in favour of her marrying. He pointed out 
to her, very frankly, how ridiculous and how miserable was 
the lot of an old maid, debarred, as she ought to be, from all 
worldly pleasures, and occupied only with hearing sermons 
and visiting the poor and the hospitals. But he saw no 
absolute necessity that Mademoiselle, at her age, should 



294 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

insist on marrying a foreign prince. Why not raise some 
French nobleman to her own level? Her choice would make 
any man equal to royalty in greatness and power. 

It was only thus that the astute Lauzun, well aware of 
Mademoiselle's growing passion, gave the smallest sign of 
understanding her. He was too wise to hurry things on. 
"The right man would be difficult to find," he said, and 
retired ceremoniously. Mademoiselle was disappointed, 
but not discouraged. She knew her own mind now, and 
that in itself was happiness. They met constantly during 
that spring of 1670, and talked of many things, including 
theology and devotion. She admired his natural, unstudied 
eloquence, never at a loss for the right word. Life had a 
new charm. Even a passing glance and greeting, when 
their coaches crossed in the street, made the day joyful for her. 

At the end of April the Court left Paris for a grand pro- 
gress in the eastern provinces, lately the scene of war, and 
M. de Lauzun commanded the troops of the royal escort. 
The whole affair was more like the passage of an army than 
the triumphal journey of a Court ; the numbers, including 
royal personages, royal mistresses, courtiers and officials, 
servants of every kind, and almost the whole of that society 
which was learning more and more to live for and by the 
King, amounted to more than twelve thousand persons. 
The baggage and furniture needed by all this crowd was 
naturally enormous. Everybody who was anybody conveyed 
all his necessary household goods and his batterie de cuisine ; 
every night saw scenes of despair because servants and 
waggons had not arrived, having stuck in the mire. The 
roads and the weather were horrible ; the Queen, who loved 
her comforts, complained incessantly ; the King, Monsieur, 
and Mademoiselle made light of difficulties in the true spirit 
of French Royalty. 

All her life Mademoiselle had suffered from one fear, that 
of water ; in crossing a river, she always screamed louder 
than anybody else ; and the dangers of this north-eastern 
progress quite equalled those of the iceberg-laden Rhone, ten 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 295 

years before. Mademoiselle's account of an adventure on 
the 3rd of May is too characteristic to be left out. The 
country between St. Quentin and Landrecies was full of 
marshes, the Sambre was in flood, and there were torrents 
of rain. The long file of coaches, carts, and horsemen had 
to cross the river by a ford, rapidly becoming dangerous. 
Those in front got over safely ; then the rising water began 
to come in at the coach-doors ; then one of the gentlemen 
had to leave his coach in the middle of the river and escape 
to land on horseback. It was late at night ; the darkness 
and storm, the torches flickering in the black water, terrified 
the Queen and Mademoiselle ; but the King rode beside 
them to another and safer ford and insisted on their trying 
it. This too proved impossible ; they screamed frightfully 
and had to return to the high road. Mademoiselle, with the 
Queen and Madame de Bethune, took shelter in a wretched 
cottage of two rooms, in a meadow by the roadside. The 
floor was of mud, and Mademoiselle slipped knee-deep into 
a hole, after which she retired to her own coach, had the 
horses taken out, put on her night-cap and dressing-gown, 
and made herself comfortable among cushions. But the 
noise all round made sleep impossible. 

Presently her restless ears heard Monsieur's voice not far 
off. On inquiry she found that he was in his coach with 
Madame, Madame de Thianges, and others, and on their in- 
vitation she had herself carried through the mud to pay them 
a visit. They were starving, but merry ; except poor little 
Henrietta, delicate and unwell, even now within a few months 
of her fatal illness. She only was " abattue." But Made- 
moiselle did not enjoy the visit, for Monsieur, perhaps of 
malice, began talking to M. de Villeroy of M. de Lauzun, 
whose exposure to the weather already troubled her. 

" I should be sorry to show myself to everybody in the 
state of M. de Lauzun. He does not look well with his 
soaked hair ; never did I see a man so frightful." 

M. de Villeroy agreed ; he had private reasons for dis- 
liking Lauzun. 



296 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Mademoiselle said to herself, " And I think he looks well, 
whatever state he may be in. And he does not care to please 
you ; and I think he knows that he pleases me." 

She returned to her own coach, and did not leave it again 
till the welcome news of food summoned her to join the King 
and Queen at the cottage. She found the Queen in a very 
bad temper, for the King was arranging that all their party 
should sleep on the floor of the larger room, on mattresses 
brought from the baggage-waggons. 

" Horrible ! What ! sleep all together 1 " cried Marie 
Th^rese ; and she wondered, not unnaturally, where was the 
pleasure in such journeys. Her propriety was also shocked ; 
but Mademoiselle took the King's part, and represented that 
there could be no harm in ten or twelve women sleeping in 
the same room with him and Monsieur. The Queen could 
say no more about that, but she did not recover her temper. 
She turned with disgust from the thin and chilly soup which 
had been sent from Landrecies by way of supper ; it seems 
that the royal batterie de cuisine had been left behind in the 
mud. The King and Mademoiselle, with Monsieur and 
Madame, fell ravenously upon the soup and soon finished it. 
Then the Queen grumbled sadly, " I wanted some and they 
have eaten it all ! " A dish of doubtful-looking meat saved 
the situation. There were chickens, but so tough that two 
persons, seizing each a leg, could scarcely tear them asunder. 

However, every one laughed except the Queen, though she 
was better off than the rest, having a real bed close to a 
blazing fire, a coign of vantage from which she could survey 
the room. It was a curious sight. The floor was covered 
with mattresses, and on these lay nine ladies, including 
Madame, Mademoiselle, Madame de Montespan, and Madame 
de la Valliere, besides Louis XIV and his brother. They 
all wore nightcaps, and had put on dressing-gowns over their 
clothes, and they had a few cloaks and rugs to cover them. 
M. de Lauzun and other gentlemen were in the inner room ; 
on the other side, oxen and asses in a stable. Altogether, a 
singular situation for the Court of France, and Madame 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 297 

de Thianges, always a wag, made irreverent jokes which dis- 
turbed even the Queen's Spanish gravity. 

Mademoiselle, at least, found it possible to sleep ; and she 
woke up with satisfaction, when the news that a bridge was 
made roused them at four o'clock in the morning, to feel 
sure that she looked better than the other ladies, pale without 
their rouge and disfigured by wakefulness. She, at least, 
with her fine natural colour, need not fear an early meeting 
with the hero of her dreams. 

The flirtation went on apace. Lauzun, following out his 
doctrine that the Bourbons were best managed by being 
" rudoyes," scolded her well for her foolish terror and want of 
self-control in crossing the water. She nearly betrayed her- 
self by asking the King to tell him to put on his hat when he 
was riding beside him, receiving the royal orders in pouring 
torrents of rain. Still, Lauzun was too clever to commit 
himself openly ; and Mademoiselle, excited, anxious, and 
happy, was not yet entirely sure of him. She sometimes 
fancied that he did not really understand her intentions. He 
was ready enough to discuss her marriage with some imagi- 
nary gentleman ; he would not yet presume so far as to put 
himself in that exalted gentleman's place. 

Thus things were slowly proceeding, when the summer 
pleasures of Versailles were interrupted by the sudden illness 
of Madame Henriette, lately returned from her visit to 
England. The Court thronged to Saint-Germain to watch 
the death-bed, so tragic in all its circumstances. People have 
ceased to believe, now, that the unhappy Princess was 
poisoned by her husband in that famous glass of chicory 
water. Mademoiselle, though living in a world of wholesale 
poisonings, aud quite as ignorant as her neighbours in 
matters of health, never credited that cruel report. But 
everything that she says about Madame and her extreme 
delicacy shows how easily fatigue and chill might have 
developed into acute peritonitis. 

Madame herself thought the worst. Mademoiselle de- 
scribes how she lay there, wasted to a shadow, crying out 



298 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

with pain, her wild, pitiful eyes watching all the spectators 
and wondering at their tranquillity. Mademoiselle, with 
some human feeling, was strongly affected. She held the 
dying girl's hand and listened to her faint words of farewell : 
" You are losing a good friend. ... I was beginning to 
know and to love you." 

Mademoiselle went raging to the doctors, who seem to 
have done nothing but stare helplessly. " I said to them, 
' One never lets a woman die without trying any remedy at 
all.' They looked at each other and said nothing. People 
were talking in the room ; going and coming ; almost 
laughing." 

According to Mademoiselle's own story, it was she alone 
who induced Monsieur to send for a priest, and Monsieur, 
with his usual eye to effect, to what would look well in the 
Gazette, did his poor wife the eternal kindness of sending 
for Bossuet, just nominated to the see of Condom. So 
Bossuet knew what he was saying when he preached that 
oraison funebre which has given Henriette more fame in her 
death than her somewhat butterfly life could ever have 
merited. It was only a few months since she had listened 
to the eloquence that mourned her mother, the Queen of 
England. 

The first consequence of Madame's death was the 
probability of Monsieur's marriage with his cousin. Made- 
moiselle. There was no pretence, of course, of anything but 
the merest "convenience." They had never disliked each 
other. Mademoiselle's friendships were not given to change, 
and it is plain that if the King had insisted on such a 
marriage, she would at first have put aside her own strong 
wishes to obey him. There was the attraction, not a small 
one, of the best place in the royal coach next to the King 
and Queen. 

But every day, as the autumn advanced. Monsieur's charm 
grew less. Frivolous and heartless, governed by selfish 
favourites, Mademoiselle contrasted him with M. de Lauzun, 
whose behaviour at this trying time was a marvel of clever- 




PHILIPPE DE FRANCE, DUC D'ORLEANS 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 299 

ness. Putting himself entirely on one side, with a manly 
cheerfulness only too admirable, he represented to Made- 
moiselle all the advantages of a marriage with Monsieur. 
Finally, in a fit of impatience. Mademoiselle begged the 
King to let her hear no more of it. Louis, who cared little, 
after all, to see her fortune in his brother's hands, answered 
good-naturedly, " You shall do as you like ; I will put no 
constraint on anybody." 

It was not long before Mademoiselle, weary of uncertainty, 
told M. de Lauzun the answer to the riddle she had so long 
set him : who, among the nobles of France, was her chosen 
husband ? She wrote two words on a sheet of paper, and 
gave it to him on a cold Sunday in December, as they stood 
by the fire after returning from Mass with the Queen. The 
words were, " C'est vous ! " 



CHAPTER VII 

1670 

" Rodrigue, qui I'eut cru? — Chimene, qui I'eut dit? — 
Que notre heur fut si proche, et sitot se perdit? — 
Et que si pres du port, contre toute apparence, 
Un orage si prompt brisat notre esperance ? — 
Ah ! mortelles douleurs ! — Ah ! regrets superflus ! " 

MADAME DE SEVIGN:^'S LETTER— INDIGNATION— DELAYS AND WARN- 
INGS — THE FATAL THURSDAY — THE MARRIAGE FORBIDDEN 

ON Monday, December i5thj 1670, the Marquise de 
Sevigne wrote from Paris the famous, untranslatable 
letter to her cousin, M. de Coulanges. 

" Je m'en vais vous mander la chose la plus etonnante, le 
plus surprenante, la plus merveilleuse, le plus miraculeuse, la 
plus triomphante, la plus etourdissante, la plus inouie, la plus 
singuliere, la plus extraordinaire, la plus incroyable, la plus 
imprevue, la plus grande, la plus petite, la plus rare, la plus 
commune, la plus eclatante, la plus secrete jusqu'a aujourd'- 
hui, la plus brillante, la plus digne d'envie . . . une chose 
que nous ne saurions croire a Paris, comment la pourroit-on 
croire a Lyon ? une chose qui fait crier mis^ricorde a tout le 
monde , . . une chose enfin qui se fera dimanche, oil ceux 
qui la verront croiront avoir la berlue^ une chose qui se fera 
dimanche, et qui ne sera peut-etre pas faite lundi. Je ne 
puis me resoudre a vous la dire, devinez-la, je vous le donne 
en trois ; jetes-vous voire langue aux chiens ? He bien ! il 
faut done vous la dire. M. de Lauzun epouse dimanche au 
Louvre, devinez qui ? Je vous le donne en quatre, je vous le 
donne en six, je vous le donne en cent. . . . Vous n'y etes 
pas. II faut done a la fin vous le dire : il epouse dimanche 
au Louvre, avec la permission du Roi, mademoiselle, ma- 

300 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 301 

demoiselle de . . . mademoiselle, devinez le nom ; il epouse 
Mademoiselle, la grande Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, fille 
de feu Monsieur, Mademoiselle, petite-fille de Henri IV, 
Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle 
de Montpensier, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Mademoiselle, cou~ 
sine germaine du Roi, Mademoiselle, destinee au trone, 
Mademoiselle, le seul parti de France qui fut digne de Mon- 
sieur. Voila un beau sujet de discourir. Si vous criez, si 
vous etes hors de vous-meme, si vous dites que nous avons 
menti, que cela est faux, qu'on se moque de vous, que voila 
une belle raillerie ... si enfin vous nous dites des injures, 
nous trouvons que vous avez raison ; nous en avons fait 
autant que vous. ..." 

Louis XIV had consented, against his better judgment, to 
the marriage of his cousin with M. de Lauzun. In the 
curious letter written to all his ambassadors abroad after the 
breaking off of the marriage, a letter which shows that the 
affair was supposed to interest foreign Courts almost as much 
as his own, he says that for the honour of the French 
nobility, having allowed his younger cousin to marry the Due 
de Guise, a cadet of the House of Lorraine, he could not re- 
fuse her sister to one of themselves — " shrugging my shoulders 
in amazement at my cousin's self-will, and merely saying that 
she was forty-three years old and could do as she pleased." 

The King's final consent was given to four noblemen, 
friends of Lauzun, on Monday the 15th, and was conveyed 
to Mademoiselle by M. de Montausier. With the freedom of 
an old acquaintance, he advised her to lose no time. Lauzun 
had more enemies than friends, and some of the former were 
powerful, among them Monsieur, the minister Louvois, and 
— secretly and traitorously — Madame de Montespan. 

" Take my advice, and be married this very evening," said 
M. de Montausier. 

Mademoiselle had good sense enough to know that he was 
right, and an interview with the Queen, who did not conceal 
her angry disgust at the news, was an even more effective 
warning. But Lauzun was too proud, and also too vain, to 



302 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

listen to counsels of prudence. The idea of making the 
finest marriage in France hurriedly and in a corner was un- 
bearable to this cadet de Gascogne, sure of himself and proud 
of his long descent. His confidence in the King, and even 
— so blind was he — in Madame de Montespan, was not to be 
shaken by any arguments. He told Mademoiselle he feared 
nothing, except that she might change her mind. He was 
safe there ; the poor woman was wildly happy, and des- 
perately in love. Her mind was full of the brilliant future 
she was providing for him ; the honours and estates she was 
eager to heap upon him. She had already planned his new 
equipage for the coming year : he must adopt her royal 
liveries in place of his own ; his very horse-cloths would be 
powdered with fleurs-de-lys. Mademoiselle was not the per- 
son to imitate her half-sister, Madame de Guise, who had 
meekly accepted her husband's liveries. 

Madame de Sevigne's letter only reflects the amazing ex- 
citement caused in all ranks of society by the news of the 
coming marriage. She wrote on the very day that it was 
made public, and when the first and the general cry was 
"Impossible!" The Parisians were sending out for news, 
running wildly in and out of each other's houses, full of 
curiosity and wonder. It was long since Paris had been so 
startled, so stirred, so struck with consternation that quickly 
changed into anger. " A thing to be done on Sunday, per- 
haps to be still undone on Monday " — the Marquise, an un- 
conscious prophet, shared the feeling of her neighbours. 
They could not believe it. Their favourite Princess, an insti- 
tution among them, always popular, good-natured, simple 
and human, yet stately and royal, to throw herself and her 
immense hereditary possessions, which made her almost a 
monarch in her own right, into the arms of a little mean- 
looking courtier, a Captain of the King's Guards ! It was 
shameful, it was degrading, and the King degraded himself, 
as well as Mademoiselle, by his consent. In fact, people 
were more angry with Louis XIV than with Mademoi- 
selle, They said that the honour of royalty, which meant 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 303 

the honour of France, ought to have been safe in his 
keeping. 

It seems likely that the King began to regret his consent 
as soon as he had given it. While Paris chattered and raged, 
nearly all the royal personages and people of influence at 
Court attacked His Majesty with strong remonstrances. 
The Queen declared that she would not sign the contract ; 
Monsieur, with great violence, cried that Mademoiselle ought 
to be sent to a mad-house and Lauzun thrown out of the 
window ; Monsieur le Prince and the Marechal de Villeroy 
added their arguments on the same side. The Dowager 
Madame, usually buried in silence and almost forgotten, 
wrote the King " une grande lettre " on the subject ; and the 
whole House of Lorraine gathered itself into a phalanx to 
support her. 

Rumours of all this reached Mademoiselle, and made her 
a little uneasy ; from the first, she hardly shared M. de 
Lauzun's confidence in the King's word. Her private sec- 
retary, Guilloire, an honest man who heard what Paris said 
and who had foreseen what was coming, boldly told her that 
she would be the laughing-stock of Europe. She forgave 
him for the time — Mademoiselle loved frank speech, whether 
guided by it or not — but a few months later she dismissed 
both him and Segrais from her household, her patience being 
exhausted by the active dislike they showed to M. de 
Lauzun. As long, indeed, as the infatuation lasted, the 
position of her faithful servants was not easy. 

Whatever society thought, during the three days that 
followed that eventful Monday, it behaved generally as if the 
marriage was a settled thing. On Tuesday it came throng- 
ing to the Luxembourg with compliments and congratula- 
tions. The Archbishops of Paris and Reims disputed the 
honour of performing the ceremony. Lauzun's comrades 
paid their duty to Mademoiselle with military jokes which 
amused her ; various gentlemen who had had " a slight cold- 
ness " with him came to ask her good offices towards recon- 
ciliation. In the evening, in the Queen's cabinet. Her 



304 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Majesty being shut up in her oratory and devoured by sulks, 
Mademoiselle and M. de Lauzun had a lively interview with 
the Comte de Rochefort, then on duty as Captain of the 
Guard. He was one of the many who had not been on good 
terms with Lauzun, but he now frankly offered his friendship 
to the fortunate man. 

When were they to be married ? They did not know. 
M. de Rochefort stared in laughing surprise. " The sooner 
the better ! " he said. " Don't delay. To-day is safer than 
to-morrow. At your height of happiness, you have every- 
thing to fear." He added, " I never saw such happiness. I 
wish you could look into a mirror and see how joy and 
content are painted on both your faces." 

" I am sure," said Mademoiselle, " I have more reason to 
be happy than M. de Lauzun has." 

Her intended husband, who all through this crisis made a 
rule to himself of dignified silence and " point de folies," said 
nothing at all. M. de Rochefort's mockery was checked by 
the entrance of the displeased Queen. 

Warnings from M. de Guitry, Lauzun's friend, pressed on 
the necessity of a speedy and quiet marriage, and sent 
Mademoiselle to bed with a fit of vapours. 

Early on Wednesday morning, before her hair was dressed, 
M. de Lauzun and the Due de Montausier were announced. 
She put on a smart cap, and sat up in her bed to receive 
them. 

M. de Montausier was in a very serious mood, and full of 
the dangers of delay. He asked the unpractical lovers how 
they could be so foolish as to suppose that such a marriage 
would be a grand ceremony, de couronne a couronne^ as if both 
sides were royal. Mademoiselle defended herself. " I have 
always told him," she said, ** that he was cleverer than I ; that 
it should be as he pleased ; but that in my opinion, once 
having the King's consent, we ought to be married without a 
word to any one else, appearing suddenly in the world as 
Monsieur and Madame de Montpensier." 

M. de Montausier agreed with her, and then turned angrily 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 305 

on Lauzun, who was leaning against the bedpost, staring at 
the pictures on the wall. 

" Voyons done ! You have no time to lose. You have 
something else to do than to look at pictures. Cannot you 
attend to your own business ? " 

There followed a long discussion. M. de Lauzun was on 
the edge of losing his temper ; these hurried arrangements 
injured his vanity, and he allowed himself to speak sharply 
to Mademoiselle, both as to her men of business, who were to 
set to work instantly on the contract, and as to where and 
when the marriage should take place. Sunday, a Court 
function, the chapel at the Louvre ; they both recognised 
that all this was now out of the question. To please him, 
though it hardly suited her dignity to be married among 
people who were his friends and not hers, she agreed to the 
Due de Richelieu's house at Conflans. The ceremony was 
fixed for the next day at noon. She showed a generous 
trust and affection which struck Monsieur de Montausier, a 
man capable of understanding character. He had no doubt 
of her loyalty. He could not say as much for his friend 
Lauzun, with all his brilliant qualities. And he may well 
have marvelled at the Princess's choice, as he looked at her 
bridegroom standing there. 

Her own description of Lauzun, given a few days later, 
with sobs and tears, to Madame de Noailles, is worth quot- 
ing. If this was the best that she, so much in love, could 
find to say of him, one is certainly driven to believe in the 
sort of magnetic power, the irresistible "je ne sais quoi," 
which some writers attribute to him. 

" He is a little man ; no one can say that his figure is not 
upright, pretty, and agreeable. His legs are handsome ; he 
does everything with an air. He has thin light hair mixed 
with grey, ill kept and often greasy ; fine blue eyes, but 
almost always red ; a lively look and manner. His smile is 
pleasing. The end of his nose is sharp and red ; there is 
something lofty in his whole physiognomy ; he is careless in 
his dress ; when he chooses to be smart, he looks very well. 

X 



3o6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

There you have the man. As to his temper and his manners, 
I defy any one to know, describe, or copy them. Enfin, he 
pleases me ; I love him passionately." 

All that day, again, complimentary crowds besieged the 
Luxembourg. The King's Ministers were among the first to 
arrive ; M. de Louvois and the three Secretaries of State, 
M. de Lyonne, M. Colbert, M. Le Tellier. There were many 
ladies, some of whom showed such exaggerated enthusiasm 
for Mademoiselle, kissing her hands and dress with cries of 
" Que vous etes adorable ! " that she was not particularly 
pleased, even before she knew that these women were mostly 
old flames of M. de Lauzun's. So many people came, she 
says, that she was obliged at length to go out, or the house 
would never have been empty. In the evening the lawyers 
arrived to draw up the contract, and Mademoiselle announced 
to them that she made a formal donation to M, de Lauzun 
of the duchy of Montpensier, the county of Eu, and the 
principality of Dombes. Later on she was informed that 
the projected wedding at Conflans would be impossible, 
as the Duchesse de Richelieu (Anne de Fors du Vigean) did 
not dare offend the Queen by lending her house. This diffi- 
culty was got over by the obliging kindness of the Mar^chale 
de Cr^qui, who offered a house at Charenton. Then the only 
necessary business was to obtain dispensations from the 
Archbishop of Paris, both as to the banns and as to being 
married in Advent. No hitch seemed likely; though certain 
remarks made by the Archbishop, reaching Mademoiselle's 
ears, disturbed her confidence in him. 

Thursday, December 1 8th, was to have been the happiest 
day of Mademoiselle's life : it turned out to be the most 
miserable. The first news that reached her was a " coup de 
massue " ; the contract, which had to be signed by the King 
and Queen, was not ready ; therefore to be married that day 
was out of the question. It would seem that Mademoiselle's 
men of business took their own view of her interests, and did 
all in their power to delay the making over of her estates 
to M. de Lauzun in the wholesale fashion she wished. They 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 307 

heard the gossip of Paris, the growling of Lauzun's enemies 
near the throne, and they shared the general, increasing doubt 
as to the end of the affair. This doubt had now invaded 
Lauzun himself: he began to see that it was not an easy- 
matter to marry a princess such as Mademoiselle in spite of 
public opinion. It seems likely that from the earliest hours 
of Thursday he knew the marriage would not come off. 

Mademoiselle faced no such possibility. She would not be 
married till after midnight on Friday ; but she was satisfied 
that by one o'clock on Saturday morning all would be over, 
and they would drive back together from Charenton to the 
Luxembourg. 

Madame de Sevigne visited her on Thursday morning, and 
found her writing a letter in bed : to Lauzun, no doubt, after 
the news of the enforced delay. 

" She told me to whom she was writing, and why, and the 
fine presents she had made the day before, and the name she 
had given ; that there was no match for her in Europe, and 
that she wished to marry. She told me word for word a con - 
versation she had had with the King ; she seemed trans- 
ported with the joy of making a man happy ; she spoke with 
tenderness of the merit and the gratitude of M. de Lauzun. 
After all this, I said to her, ' Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, you 
seem well satisfied ; but why did you not finish the thing off 
promptly on Monday? Don't you know that so great a 
delay gives the whole kingdom time to talk, and that it is 
tempting God and the King to keep such an extraordinary 
affair dragging on so long ? ' She said I was right, but she 
was so full of confidence that my discourse made only a 
slight impression on her then. She went back to Lauzun's 
good qualities and distinguished birth. I repeated these 
lines from Polyeucte — 

Du moins on ne la peut blamer d'un mauvais choix : 
Polyeucte a du nom, et sort du sang des Rois. 

She embraced me cordially. This conversation lasted an 
hour ; it is impossible to repeat all ; but I was certainly very 



3o8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

agreeable all the time, and I may say it without vanity, for 
she was glad to speak to somebody, her heart was too full. 
At ten o'clock she gave herself over to the rest of France, 
which came to pay compliments. . . ." 

In the afternoon Mademoiselle amused herself with arrang- 
ing a fine apartment for M. de Montpensier. The Abbe de 
Choisy and others were with her towards evening. 

" She led us," he says, " into an adjoining room, destined 
for M. de Lauzun. It was magnificently furnished. ' Don't 
you think,' she said, ' that such a lodging is good enough for 
a cadet de Gascogne ? ' " 

She made all her arrangements for the next day: confession 
in the morning, the start for Charenton at four o'clock. She 
had a rather uncomfortable interview with Lauzun, whose 
mind was so disagreeably impressed by the general opposi- 
tion — involving hints of personal danger for himself — that he 
begged her to consider seriously what she was doing, and to 
gratify her world by withdrawing at the last moment, if she 
now felt the slightest regret or uncertainty. She would not 
listen to anything he said, her one concern being that he 
should take care of a severe cold which made his eyes redder 
than usual. His sister, Madame de Nogent, with other ladies 
who were present, laughed gaily at them both. Lauzun 
went away sad. Mademoiselle, troubled by some heavy 
presentiment, could not restrain her tears. 

At eight o'clock came the summons from the King. 
Arrived at the Louvre, she was conducted to his private 
room, and this seemed to her of evil omen. They were not 
actually alone together, for Louis had provided himself with 
a witness : the Prince de Conde was hidden behind the 
door. But Mademoiselle did not know that. 

" I found the King quite alone," she writes, " sad and 
moved. He said to me, ' I am in despair at what I have to 
tell you. I am told the world says I am sacrificing you to 
make M. de Lauzun's fortune ; that this will injure me 
abroad, and that I ought not to allow the affair to be con- 
cluded. You have reason to complain of me ; beat me, if 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 309 

you like. No rage of yours can surpass what I deserve and 
will endure.' 

"'Ah!' I cried, 'Sire, what are you saying? What cruelty!' 
I threw myself at his feet and said, ' Sire, better kill me than 
place me in such a position. . . . What will become of me ? 
Where is he, Sire, M. de Lauzun ? ' 

"'Do not be anxious about him: nothing will happen to 
him.' 

" ' Ah, Sire, I fear everything for him and for myself 
since our enemies have prevailed over your kindness for 
him.' 

" ' He threw himself on his knees beside me and embraced 
me. For three-quarters of an hour we embraced, his cheek 
against mine. He wept as bitterly as I did. 

" ' Ah ; why did you give me time to reflect ? Why did you 
not make haste ? ' 

" ' Alas, Sire, who could have distrusted Your Majesty's own 
word ? You have never broken it to any one, and you begin 
with me and M. de Lauzun ! I shall die, and I shall be too 
happy to die ; I love, love passionately and truly, the best 
man in your kingdom. His elevation was the pleasure and 
joy of my life. . . . You gave him to me ; you take him 
from me ; it is like tearing out my heart. I shall love you 
no less ; but my grief is all the more cruel, being caused by 
what I love best in all the world.' " 

Her tears, prayers, and reproaches were of no avail. Her 
royal cousin, who had no doubt a certain affection for her 
and found himself in a painful position, might have disre- 
garded the remonstrances of his wife, his brother, his other 
Bourbon cousins and the whole House of Lorraine, as well 
as the foreign opinion he chiefly pleaded ; but he could not 
resist the Marquise de Montespan. In the afternoon of that 
very day this lady had been advised by a friend — some say, 
the old Princesse de Carignan ; some, her very clever gover- 
ness, Madame Scarron ; perhaps both — that her known 
friendship with M. de Lauzun would cause the royal family, 
so strongly prejudiced against the marriage, to lay the blame 



3IO A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

of it on her. Further, that royal favour at its best was un- 
certain, and that the affair might end in ruin for herself. 
She therefore went to the King, and begged him for his own 
sake and hers to forbid the marriage. Afterwards, when 
Lauzun reproached her, she bore his remarks " with admir- 
able patience." 

Mademoiselle drove back at full speed to the Luxem- 
bourg, in a terrible state of mind. The Abbe de Choisy, who 
was among those waiting for her return, gives a vivid account 
of it. 

" Two of her footmen entered the room, saying aloud, 
' Go out quickly by the staircase ! ' Everybody crowded out ; 
but I was among the last, and saw the Princess coming along 
the guard-room like a fury, dishevelled, waving her arms as if 
to threaten heaven and earth ; she had broken the windows 
of her coach on the way." 

The poor woman's grief was too violent and too human 
to be soothed by formalities and deputations. Lauzun's cool 
self-command, when he arrived with his friends, by order of 
the King, to thank her for the honour she had done him, and 
to assure her of His Majesty's kind consideration for them 
both, only lacerated her feelings the more. He actually 
advised her to appear the next day at the royal dinner, and 
to thank the King for his goodness in forbidding her to do 
what she would have repented all her life long. 

" You are so strong-minded," she sobbed, " that everybody 
will think you are indifferent to me ! " 

Everybody did think so, except Mademoiselle herself, and 
everybody was right. Personally, of course, M. de Lauzun 
cared nothing for Mademoiselle. For a few days, weeks, 
months probably, he had fancied himself the richest man in 
France and lifted by marriage into a higher position than 
that of any of his fellow-nobles. But the will of Providence 
or the King — the words were interchangeable under 
Louis XIV — had at the last moment dashed the cup from 
his lips. M. de Lauzun was equal to the occasion. He 
knew that the one present necessity, for him, was to keep 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 31 x 

his place in the King's favour, and outwardly, at least, he 
bore his reverse with manly dignity and resignation. The 
Abbe de Choisy declares that the King offered to make him 
a Duke and a Marshal of France, and that he refused both 
honours. Saint -Simon, who knew Lauzun well in later 
years, says that he made his sacrifice with a good grace, 
while Mademoiselle "jeta feu et flammes." Madame de 
Sevign6, an eye-witness, writing on Christmas Eve, says : 
" M. de Lauzun has played his part to perfection : he bears 
his misfortune with a firmness, a courage, and yet a sadness 
mingled with deep respect, which win everybody's admira- 
tion. He has lost what is priceless; but the King's good 
graces, which he has kept, are priceless too. . . ." 

On Friday morning, twenty-four hours after her former 
visit, Madame de Sevigne was again with Mademoiselle, for 
whom, unlike the heartless crowd of the Court, she seems to 
have felt an honest, warm-hearted pity. 

"... I found her in her bed ; she redoubled her cries when 
she saw me, she called me to her, she embraced me, bathed 
me with her tears. She said to me, ' Alas, do you remember 
what you said to me yesterday ? Ah ! what cruel prudence ! 
ah, prudence ! ' Her weeping made me weep too. I have 
been to her twice since then ; she is much afflicted, and 
always treats me as a person who feels for her grief; she is 
not mistaken. I have felt, on this occasion, as one seldom 
does for people of her high rank." 

The King's personal consolations, which ought to have 
been valuable, were characteristically received by Made- 
moiselle. He came to see her on the day after the cata- 
strophe, and tried to comfort her with caresses, "his cheek 
against mine." She said to him, " Your Majesty reminds me 
of those apes which smother their children when they em- 
brace them." 

The Queen also came, but could find nothing to say. 
Monsieur avoided the subject, and talked about perfumes. 
Among many other visitors, it is displeasing to see the name 
of Madame de Montespan. Either from ignorance of what 



312 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

she had done, or from a well-founded respect for her in- 
fluence, Mademoiselle talked to her as a friend. Madame de 
la Valliere, whose sympathy was tactless, said stupid things 
and was dismissed as a fool. 

On Christmas Eve, worn and hollow-eyed after living for 
several days on tears and broth, Mademoiselle reappeared at 
Court. When the Queen asked her how she did, she replied 
shortly, " Very well " ; but in the presence of the King she 
found it impossible to control herself, and was obliged to 
turn aside into a window to hide her tears. Louis spoke to 
her with friendly sympathy. But his kindness was cruel. 
She feared that he might forbid her to see M. de Lauzun 
again. He did nothing of the sort. For his own present 
peace and her future misery, he was willing that the lost 
lover should continue to be her best friend. 

" Voila qui est fini. Adieu ! " says Madame de Sevigne, 
having told the romantic story, the beautiful dream, the com- 
plete tragedy, of Mademoiselle and M. de Lauzun. Un- 
happily, the tragedy with all its sordid developments and 
dreary consequences only ended with Mademoiselle's life. 



CHAPTER VIII 

1671-1694 

"Personne n'a possede les grandes qualites de son epoque a un 
plus haut degre que cette princesse, et personne ne les avait con- 
servees aussi intactes, sans souci du danger, apres qu'elles furent 
devenues une cause de defaveur. ... La Grande Mademoiselle fut 
toujours la Grande Mademoiselle, et, si ce fut quelquefois son 
defaut, ce fut bien plus souvent son titre de gloire." 

THE STORY OF A SECRET MARRIAGE — LAUZUN's IMPRISONMENT — 
MADEMOISELLE'S CONSTANCY — CHOISY — FREEDOM AND DISILLUSION — 
THE FINAL QUARREL — LAST DAYS AND DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE 

ANGRY Paris began to laugh; appeased by the King's 
JLJL action, it was now keenly sensible of the ridiculous side 
of the proposed marriage. Society, which had been so 
ready to pay its compliments at the Luxembourg, laughed 
too ; only a very few kind people felt for Mademoiselle in 
the downfall of her hopes. The unlucky affair lessened her 
countrymen's respect for her and destroyed in a great 
measure her popularity. The French are always impatient 
of a want of that balance, that sense of proportion in manag- 
ing one's life, which they generally possess in so high a 
degree. 

After the crisis of December, 1670, Mademoiselle con- 
tinued to be on the most affectionate terms with M. de 
Lauzun. She took his advice on all her affairs, dismissed 
her old servants and changed her confessor to please him, 
loaded him with presents, bored him with cautions and 
anxieties : he must beware of the cold and the damp, must 
take care of his teeth, his eyes, his hair. All this intimacy 
rather justified the gossips in believing in a secret marriage ; 
of which, it may at once be said, there exists no real proof 

313 



314 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

whatever. No date, no place, no witnesses ; nothing but 
guess-work and a certain amount of tradition, handed on 
from one writer of memoirs or letters to another. 

It has been thought that the marriage took place during 
the early days after the catastrophe, or at least during 
Lauzun's ten months of freedom in that year 1671. Made- 
moiselle mentions the gossip of the time, and the way in 
which she takes it may certainly have two meanings. In 
April they travelled with the Court into Flanders ; the first 
stage, by the way, was a visit to the Prince de Conde at 
Chantilly, and this was the occasion of the famous suicide of 
Vatel. 

"A report was spread that we had been married before 
leaving Paris, and the Gazette de Hollande said so. They 
brought it, to show it to me. He laughed ; I said nothing. 
. . . People went on saying we were married. Neither 
he nor I said anything. Only our particular friends dared 
speak of it, and we laughed in their faces. . . ." 

Her own words, written in 1677, while Lauzun was still 
pining in his dungeon at Pignerol, seem to make it clear 
that he was not then her husband. She is writing in her 
Memoirs of Mazarin's last suggestion that she should marry 
Charles II, and of the little interest she took in this matter 
of marriage, owing to her personal indifference to every 
match that had been proposed to her. 

" But that same Providence, which acts in all things, so 
that a hair does not fall from our heads without God's fore- 
knowledge, did not then decide, and still delays to decide, 
what should happen to give me a fixed state, in which I 
could find perfect repose." 

Segrais, who knew her well, and did her full justice in 
spite of his disgrace, never believed in the secret marriage. 
She was a proud woman, and whatever her weakness 
for Lauzun, it is difficult to conceive her consenting to the 
necessary arrangements. The thing would have been im- 
possible, of course, without the King's knowledge and con- 
nivance ; but at the best it would have involved subterfuges 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 315 

and domestic mysteries quite foreign to her frank, autocratic 
character. 

Another proof to the contrary is to be found in her 
bargaining with Madame de Montespan in 1680 for Lauzun's 
liberty. She would do anything for the King's children, " if 
the King would set M. de Lauzun free and consent to my 
marrying him." One day Madame de Montespan said to 
her, "You must not flatter yourself; the King will never 
consent to your marrying M. de Lauzun in the way you 
wish, nor to his being called M. de Montpensier. But he 
will make him a Duke ; and if you choose to marry, he will 
pretend to know nothing about it ; and if people tell him, he 
will scold them. Will not that be the same thing ? " 

Mademoiselle answered, " What, Madame ! He will live 
with me as my husband, without being declared to be such ? 
What will be said and thought of me ? " 

Madame de Montespan's arguments were amusing, if not 
convincing. But no one who knows Mademoiselle will be- 
lieve that she was already familiar with the stolen happiness 
so attractively set before her. 

But this is forestalling the later scenes of the sorry 
romance. 

On the 25th November, 1671, Lauzun was arrested without 
the slightest warning and carried away to his prison at 
Pignerol. He had many enemies, but Madame de Mont- 
espan was the most powerful. She found him dangerous, for 
ever since the stopping of the marriage he had not concerned 
himself, either in private or in public, to hide his opinion of 
her, and if Segrais is to be believed, she was advised by the 
far-sighted Madame Scarron to rid herself of him in this 
effectual way. 

So the King's little courtier vanished into the darkness of 
his state prison, leaving few friends to occupy themselves 
with his fate, and only one ready to make sacrifices for the 
sake of his freedom. He vanished at a moment when the 
Court was thinking of something else, busy with its welcome 
to Monsieur's new wife, Charlotte-Elisabeth of Bavaria, and 



3i6 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

wondering at the German eccentricity which dressed her in 
pale blue silk when all France was shivering in furs. For 
that November was a time of frost and snow, which deepened 
Mademoiselle's grief in thinking of her lover's journey, to end 
in the chilly damps of a dungeon. 

" It amazes me that I did not die of it," she writes. 

But she found good reasons for living, and even for regular 
attendance at the Court functions to which she was more than 
indifferent. The King must not be displeased by her absence, 
or allowed to forget the existence of M. de Lauzun. Every 
one knew that his affection for him had once been real ; it 
might be revived through pity for his present state ; and 
Mademoiselle did not now blame the King, knowing that 
Lauzun's disgrace was the work of his personal enemies. 

It is impossible not to admire the steady constancy of her 
life during those ten years. She would willingly have given 
way to a grief deepened and justified by news that reached 
her now and then of Lauzun's sufferings, his failing health, a 
futile attempt at escape which only ended in more severe 
captivity. But there were other things to be done for his 
sake. 

" The same sense of duty," she writes, " which might have 
kept me at home to lament him, to weep for him, to talk of 
him with his friends, to attend churches, to kneel before the 
Crucifix praying God for patience, so necessary for both him 
and me for the right bearing of our cross, has led me to take 
all the steps I have taken, hardly natural in a person whose 
heart is pierced, like mine, with tender sorrow." 

So Mademoiselle, the King's old cousin, sturdily kept her 
conspicuous place at Court, never giving up hope of Lauzun's 
liberty and her own future happiness, while joining with a 
sad heart in all the amusements and all the troubles of the 
royal family. She knew that there was no real reason, 
beyond private revenge and spite, why the imprisonment 
should linger on from one year to another. The King him- 
self told the Duke of Buckingham, who ventured to intercede 
for him, that Lauzun was not lost for ever. It was generally 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 317 

said that a severe lesson was needed by the proud and 
ambitious little man, who had made the mistake of being too 
popular with the troops and thus giving Louvois, always his 
enemy, an excuse for distrusting him. But no treasonable 
action or intention could be proved against Lauzun, and in 
the end the same person who really caused his arrest was the 
means of his being set free. The affair in all its stages was a 
triumph for Madame de Montespan. 

During these years Mademoiselle occupied herself much 
with her estates, which she hoped Lauzun might one day 
enjoy ; and with the help of her friend the Abbe de Ranee, 
now the saintly Abbot of La Trappe, she founded various 
charitable institutions, schools and hospitals, particularly at 
Eu, where she spent most of her time when not at Versailles 
or the Luxembourg. 

Ranee was a man of sense, as well as of devotion. When 
they renewed their friendship in 1676, she was in very low 
spirits and constantly visiting her neighbours at the Carme- 
lite Convent, where her beloved Mademoiselle d'Epernon 
(Soeur Anne-Marie), was what she always remained, one of 
the humblest of the nuns. Mademoiselle du Vigean was 
dead ; it was a year since Louise de la Valliere had taken 
the veil. People expected that the Abbe de Ranee would 
influence Mademoiselle to end her troubles by following all 
these familiar examples. But, says she, "he was clever 
enough to know that persons of my quality can do more 
good in the world than by leaving it, and that they save 
themselves in saving others, when they know how to make 
use of their quality by giving a good example and by help- 
ing the widow and the orphan with their purse and their 
protection." 

Acting on this doctrine, Mademoiselle made her philan- 
thropic foundations, placed them under the care of Sisters 
of Charity, and for the rest of her life was earnestly and 
practically interested in their working and administration. 

It was also during these years that Mademoiselle, always 
planning a happy future, bought a tract of woodland over- 



3i8 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

looking the Seine at Choisy, and built for herself what she 
had long desired, a country house near Paris. She first 
thought of employing Le Notre, but as he ventured, in talk- 
ing to the King, to criticise the situation she had chosen, 
he with his plans was promptly "plante la," and Gabriel, a 
more submissive architect, built the house according to her 
fancy. The arranging of her lawns, woods, and terraces, 
kitchen-garden and orangery, the decoration of rooms and 
galleries, the collection of portraits, especially those of the 
King — " the finest ornament of all, the most honourable, and 
the dearest to me" — with the lovely view from windows 
commanding not only a part of Paris and passing boats on 
the Seine, but the forest of Senart and the wide plain 
scattered with villages and bounded by distant hills ; all 
this gave Mademoiselle some of her latest happy hours. A 
few months, and the ungrateful, ill-conditioned Lauzun was 
growling over the money she had spent on Choisy, and 
frankly saying, " You would have done better to give it to me." 

The generous, constant creature had given him all she 
could. With the understanding that he was to be set at 
liberty, she had settled a large part of her estates and 
fortune, including Eu and Dombes, on the Due du Maine, 
son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. This lady 
managed the affair odiously well, leading Mademoiselle at 
first to believe that the King would consent to her marriage, 
and actually causing M. de Lauzun to be brought from 
Pignerol to the Baths of Bourbon, that she might extract 
from him a renunciation of Mademoiselle's gifts. At first 
the prisoner refused, and went back to his dungeon, but in 
the end he was forced to yield. Mademoiselle did her best, 
then and later, to compensate him with Saint-Fargeau and 
other property. 

Though Lauzun was set at liberty, it was long before he 
was allowed to return to the Court. As for Mademoiselle, 
ready with welcome and forgiveness in spite of many 
scandalous stories which had reached her during those ten 
years, disillusion and disgust were her portion. 




LOUIS XIV 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 319 

It was not extraordinary. It takes a fine nature to pass 
through a long, unhealthy captivity without bodily and 
mental deterioration. Lauzun was neither strong in body 
nor noble in mind. His good qualities, except as a soldier, 
were skin-deep. He came back greedy, worldly, selfish as 
ever, horribly ungrateful to the Princess who had been so 
true to him. A born courtier, miserable away from the 
King, he actually reproached Mademoiselle with having mis- 
managed his affairs and delayed his freedom by her inter- 
ference. They were on the strangest terms, for although he 
spent his time in low pleasures and gambling, he looked 
to her for supplies and indulgences of every kind — money, 
fine lodgings, horses and carriages — and expected, as before, 
to have the whole management of her affairs. This she 
very decidedly would not give him ; but yet, though con- 
stantly offended and hurt by his ingratitude and other sins, 
she bore with him patiently for three years. 

If they were married secretly, as some people think, soon 
after his return from Pignerol, it yet seems impossible to fix 
the time, or to ignore the improbabilities. Evidently he had 
still a considerable charm for her, but it hardly lasted for two 
years after his reappearance. Writing in 1690, three years 
before her death, of the winter of 1682-3, she says : " I spent 
the winter as usual, in going and coming between Paris and 
Versailles. M. de Lauzun visited me every evening at the 
hour of play; his changeable humours continued. I was 
beginning to know him, and to be tired of him ; but I 
wished to carry out the bargain, and I was unwilling, after 
having done so much for [him, to forsake him before reach- 
ing the desired end ; which was, to have him made a duke 
and restored to the Court." 

Is this a woman writing of her husband ? One can hardly 
believe it; and yet the tradition of the marriage lives, and 
will continue to live, as well as the various stories connected 
with it. 

In any case, as Sainte-Beuve says, married or not. Made- 
moiselle bore " the slow suffering which wears out love in a 



320 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

heart, the scorn and anger which break it, and she reached 
that final indifference which knows no remedy or consolation 
except in God. It is a sad day, the day when one discovers 
that the person one loved to deck with all perfections and to 
load with all gifts was after all si pen de chose" 

Before the final quarrel in the spring of 1684 there were 
curious scenes of rage and reconciliation at the Chateau d'Eu. 

M. de Lauzun, in his visits to Mademoiselle, scandalised 
the neighbourhood with vicious courses which were reported 
in her ears and cost him blows and scratches from his 
incensed patroness — wife, possibly — for these stories are the 
strongest existing evidence of a marriage. On one occa- 
sion she was so angry that she turned him out of doors. 
Saint-Simon tells the story on the authority of a virtuous 
witness, Madame de Fontenilles, who was present at the 
scene in the long gallery at Eu, when Madame de Fiesque had 
patched up a temporary peace. 

" Mademoiselle appeared at the end of the gallery ; he was 
at the other end, and he traversed the whole length on his 
knees as far as Mademoiselle's feet." 

Saint-Simon goes on to say : " These scenes, more or 
less violent, often recurred afterwards. He got tired of 
being beaten, and in his turn soundly beat Mademoiselle, 
and this happened several times, so that at last, weary of 
each other, they quarrelled once for all and never saw each 
other again." 

The final separation took place on April 22nd, 1684. M. 
de Lauzun, in a terrible humour, came to see Mademoiselle 
at the Luxembourg ; the King was starting to join his army 
on the frontier, and the daring little officer of former days 
was left behind. Mademoiselle, laughing at his gloomy airs, 
advised him to leave Paris for one of his estates. 

" It is ridiculous to stay here," she said, " and I should be 
very sorry if any one thought I was the cause of your 
staying." 

Lauzun replied, " I am going, and I bid you farewell, never 
in my life to see you again." 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 321 

" Life would have been very happy," she retorted, " if I 
had never seen you ; but better late than never." 

" You have ruined my fortune," he answered ; " you have 
cut my throat ; you are the cause that I am not going with 
the King ; it is at your request." 

" Oh ! as to that, it is false," said Mademoiselle ; " he can 
tell you so himself." 

He flew into a rage, but she remained cool. At last she 
said, " Adieu then ! " and left the room. Returning after 
some time, she found him still there with her ladies, waiting 
for the usual evening games. She went up to him and said, 
" This is too much ; keep your resolution ; begone." 

He went, carrying his complaints straight to Monsieur, 
and letting all Paris know that he had been " chasse comme 
un coquin." 

He did not gain much sympathy from Monsieur, always 
friendly with Mademoiselle. Several years later, at Lauzun's 
request, Monsieur interceded for him with his cousin. The 
Marquis de Dangeau tells the result, 

"Mademoiselle replied to Monsieur that M. de Lauzun was 
an ungrateful man, that she would not see him, that she 
would give everything in the world never to have seen him. 
Monsieur highly approved of Mademoiselle's answer." 

In fact, they never met again. He wrote to her; she 
burned his letters unread. When she was ill he came con- 
stantly to inquire for her, but was never admitted ; even on 
her death-bed she angrily refused to see him. After he had 
recovered his master's favour by the successful adventure in 
England which ended in his rescuing the wife and son of 
James II, and by which he attained fresh fame, the Order of 
the Garter, and finally the long-desired dukedom, he sent to 
Choisy a fine collection of Chinese curiosities bought in Eng- 
land. Mademoiselle would not receive them, though, like 
herself, she could not resist going to look at them and 
admiring their quaint beauty. 

She drifted on into a melancholy old age, surviving most of 
her cousins and friends, her allies in the days of the Fronde. 

Y 



322 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 

Among the changes of her later years, the chief one was 
that brought about by the death of the Queen, whom she 
regretted sincerely. " I liked that poor woman," she says, 
writing of the heartless funeral ceremonies, the laughter in 
the mourning coaches, the scandalous behaviour of the escort, 
scattered hunting over the plain of St, Denis. Even Madame 
de Montespan was shocked. She had put the finishing 
touch to the martyrdom of Marie-Therese by devoted atten- 
tion during her few days' illness. To her, indeed, the Queen's 
death was no advantage, for it meant the raising of her para- 
site and rival to a place quite out of her own reach. The 
marvellous cleverness, the supreme good sense, of Madame 
de Maintenon, gained an easy victory over the stateliest 
beauty, the most agreeable charm, the most real genius for 
magnificence, that the Court of France ever knew. Ma- 
demoiselle had reason enough to complain of Madame de 
Montespan, but she always found her irresistible. The suc- 
ceeding reign of veiled ambition and hypocrisy had no 
attraction for a woman of Mademoiselle's character. 

When, in the spring of 1693, she lay dying at the Luxem- 
bourg, Paris remembered its old affection for the Princess 
who had never deserted its cause, and had not forsaken the 
capital of France, like the King, who could not forgive past 
rebellion in man, woman, or city, for a great extravagant 
palace outside the walls. Mademoiselle was always Parisian 
at heart. The same bells which had welcomed her birth 
now chimed for her passing. She died on Sunday, April 5th, 
within a few weeks of her sixty-sixth birthday ; hurried out 
of life by the strong remedies of ignorant doctors, like so 
many people of her time. 

By her will, dated in 1685, Mademoiselle left large legacies 
to different charitable works, and also to all her servants " to 
keep them from dying of hunger like those of certain great 
princesses, whom she had seen in that sad condition," She left 
Choisy to the Dauphin, and she appointed Monsieur, her 
cousin and friend, her residuary legatee. The largest portion 
of her property was already settled on the Due du Maine. 



EXILE AND LATER LIFE 323 

In this will M. de Lauzun was not mentioned. An earlier 
one, however, still existed, sealed with Mademoiselle's six 
seals ; this was brought to the King by Lauzun two days 
after her death, and was officially opened by the first 
President of the Parliament of Paris. It made Lauzun her 
sole heir. Being superseded, however, the only effect of this 
precious document was to irritate the King and his brother 
against M. de Lauzun. And he did himself no good by 
appearing at Court in the deepest mourning, with his servants 
in a new livery of black and silver. 

La Grande Mademoiselle was sincerely missed and re- 
spectfully mourned, even by the people who had scoffed at 
her mistakes and eccentricities. Always herself, always 
natural and human, she was one of the last links between the 
magnificent, formal, famine-stricken France of Louis XIV 
and Madame de Maintenon, where society had become a 
mere mirror to reflect the King, and the old world gradually 
subdued by Richelieu and Mazarin, the world of adventure, 
of fun and fighting, of individual, independent romance. 



INDEX 



Aiguillon, Duchesse d' (Madame de 
Combalet), 19, 29, 47-50, 62, 143, 
179, 248 

Alengon, Mademoiselle d', 275 

Alfonso VI, King of Portugal, 282 

Alluye, Marquis d', 186 

Andre, le Pere, 126 

Angouleme, Due d', 93 

Anjou, Gaston Due d' {see Orleans), 4 

— Philippe Due d' {see Orleans), 60, 
100, 148, 244, 257, 268 

Anne of Austria, Queen of France, 5, 
7, 10, 14, 23, 27 etc., 37, 53, 55, 
59, 68, 77, 97 etc., 109, 119 etc., 
129, 131 etc., 136 etc., 146 etc., 
150 etc., 162, 164, 166, 170, 197, 
243, 253, 257, 259 etc., 271, 274, 
283, 286, 288 etc. 

Antin, Marquis d', 33 

Arnauld, la Mere Angelique, 81, lOi, 
164 

— d'Andilly, Robert, 81, 240, 241 

— de Corbeville, Pierre, 81 

B 

Bains, Mademoiselle de (Marie de 

Lancry), loi, 102 
Barillon, President, 98 
Bartet, 177 
Beaufort, Fran9ois Due de, 43, 103, 

104, 108, no, 154, 157, 166, 181, 

183-4, 188-9, 193, 201-2, 215, 223, 

241 
Beaumont, Mademoiselle de, 40, 52, 56 
Beauvais, Bishop of, 98 
Bellegarde, Due de, 102, 213 
Benserade, 279 
Beringhen, M. de, 150 
Bertaut, Madeleine, 150, 155 
Berulle, Cardinal de, 126 
Berville, M. de, 227 
Bethune, Chevalier de, 218, 219 

— Comtesse de, 44, 224, 233 

— Hippolyte Comte de, 44, 215, 224, 
234, 241 



Bethune, Philippe, Comte de, 44, 224 

Blancmesnil, President de, 130, 136 

Boccau, 24 

Bossu, Comtesse de, 93 

Bossuet, 81, 82, 238, 298 

Bouillon, Due de, 58, 63, 64, 94, 154, 

165, 169, 171, 180 
— Duchesse de (Marie- Anne Mancini), 

246 
Boulay, Captain Brulart du, 78 
Bouthillier, Madame, 122, 211, 233 
Boyer, 279 
Brayer, Dr., 225 
Brays, M. de, 227 
Breaute, Madame de, 183, 187 
Brienne, Comte de, 23, 24 
Broussel, Councillor, 130, 13 1-3, 135-8 
Buckingham, Duke of, 27, 316 



Calprenede, La, 215 

Candale, Due de, 140, 215 

Carignan, Princesse de, 164, 246, 309 

Casimir, Prince, 140, 177 

Chabot, 49 

Chalais, Comte de, 7, 27 

Chantal, Mademoiselle de Rabutin {see 

Sevigne), 35, 75, 82 
Chapelain, 78, 81 
Chapelles, Comte des, 30 
Charles I, 12, 113, 156, 164, 230 
Charles II, 1 14-16, 118, 165, 179, iSo, 

194, 231-2, 287, 314 
Charny, Chevalier de, 45, 218, 224 
Chateauneuf, Marquis de, 104 
Chatillon, Gaspard d'Andelot de 

Coligny, Due de, 162 

— Duchesse de, 163, 169, 179, 182, 

192, 195, 232-3 
Chavigny, Comte de, 146 
Chemerault, Mademoiselle de, 56 
Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 27-36, 45, 48, 

95, 104, 107, 108-10, 135, 166, 172, 

193. 19s, 238 

— Mademoiselle de, 167, 23S 
Choisy, Abbe de, 276-7, 310-11 



325 



326 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 



Choisy, Madame de, 115, 176-9, 182 
Cinq-Mars, Marquis de, 56, 61, 62, 

64-6 
Clanleu, M. de, 161 
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 242, 286 
Coligny, Maurice de, 108, no, 162 
Combalet, Madame de {see d'Aiguillon) 
Comminges, M. de, 150, 168, 170 
Conde, Princesse de (Charlotte Mar- 
guerite de Montmorency), 21, 82-3, 
107-9, IJ4, 151, 154-5, 162, 172 

[see d'Enghien) (Claire-CIemence 

de Maille-Breze), 170, 171, 175, 204 

— Henry, Prince de, 6, 21, 36, 82, 95, 
97, 103, 107 

— Louis, Prince de {see d'Enghien), 
122, 130, 144-6, 151, 156, 159, 
160-5, 167-8, 173, 174-6, 178, 180, 
182, 188, 190 etc., 204-5, 211, 221, 
229, 232, 241, 266-7, 286, 289, 308 

Conrart, Valentin, 77, 143 

Conti, Armand, Prince de, 146-7, 151, 

154, 157, 165, 168, 228, 238, 253 
Corneille, Pierre, 73-7, 237, 247, 249, 

287, 293 
Courci, Princesse de, 164 
Cousinot, Jacques, 226 
Crequi, Mademoiselle de, 287 

— Marechale de, 306 
Cromwell, 126, 253 

D 

Dangeau, Marquis de, 321 
Dauphin, the, 57-60 {see Louis XIV) 

— (son of Louis XIV), 322 
Davaux, 212 

Digby, Lord, 164 

E 

Elbeuf, Due d', 154, 165 
Enghien, Louis Due d' {see Conde), 
82-3, 94-5, 99, 107, 112, 143, 162 

— Due d' (son of above), 148, 151, 287 

— Duchesse d' {see Conde), 89 
Epernon, Due d', 92, 140, 170 

— Duchesse d', 142 

— Mademoiselle d', 21, 92-3, 129, 
140-3, 177, 317 

Escars, Mademoiselle d', 56 
Esselin, 229, 233 



Faure, Bishop, 238 
Fayette, Mademoiselle de la, 55 
Ferdinand III, Emperor, 116, 1 1 8, 170 
Ferdinand of Spain, Infant, 59 
Ferte, Madame de la, 176 



Ferte, Marechal de la, 195, 198 
Fiesque, Chevalier de, 141 

— Comte de, 195, 229 

— Comtesse de, 88-91, 100, 130, 153, 
179, 196, 201, 212, 216 

— Comtesse de (Gillonne d'Harcourt), 
183, 186-7, 196, 216, 220, 227, 229, 
250, 262, 320 

Flamarens, Marquis de, 184, 200 
Fontenilles, Madame de, 320 
Fontevrault, Madame de (Jeanne Bap- 

tiste de Bourbon), 49, 51-3, 224 
FouqueroUes, Madame de, 109 
Frontenac, Comte de, 219 

— Comtesse de (Mademoiselle de Neu- 
ville), 176, 183, 186-7, 212, 216, 220, 
227, 235, 250 

G 

Georges, le Pere, 181 
Godeau, Bishop, 78 
Gombauld, M. de, 78 
Gondi, Jean-Francois de (Archbishop 
of Paris), 105, 127, 128, 203, 289 

— Paul de {see Cardinal de Retz), 127 
Gonzague, Anne de (Princesse Palatine), 

93, 172, 176, 177, 179, 182, 274 

— Marie de (Queen of Poland), 62, 
141, 177 

— Benedicte de (Abbess of Avenay), 
93. 266 

Goulas, 200, 221 
Graraont, Marechal de, 261 
Grignan, Comte de, 85 
Guenaut, Dr., 225 
Guilloire, 220, 303 
Guise, Charles Due de, 7, 94 

— Henry Due de, 93, 94, 108, no, 
113, 129, 229, 233, 241, 286 

— Duchesse de (Henriette de Joyeuse), 
7, II, 88,92, 95, 220 

— Louis Due de, 275 
Guitaut, M. de, 132, 168 

— M. de(the younger), 174, 198 
Guitry, M. de, 304 



H 

Haro, Don Luis de, 261, 272, 273 
Haucourt, Mesdemoiselles de, 216 
Hautefort, Mademoiselle de, 29, 55-7, 

104, 279 
Henrietta-Anne, Duchesse d'Orleans 

{see Orleans) 
Plenrietta-Maria, Queen of England, 

12, 51, 112, 113-17, 126, 136, 156, 

165, 194, 230-2, 250, 298 



INDEX 



327 



Henry IV, King of France, 3, 4, 5, 7, 
9, 12, 21, 22, 25, 39, 44, 51, 58, 61, 
71, 72, 73, 108, 113, 130, 132, 188, 
216, 224, 254, 267, 301 

Hopital, Marechal de 1', 196, 201 

Humieres, Marquis d', 275 

J 
James II, 321 
Jansenius, 239 
Jarnac, Corate de, 287 
Joinville, Chevalier de, 92 
Joseph, Pere, 35, 83 
Joyeuse, Henriette de (see Guise) 

— Due de (Louis de Lorraine), 92, 

93. 141 

— Due de, 250 {see Louis, Due de 
Guise) 

L 

Ladislas, King of Poland, 62, 177 
La Loupe, Mesdemoiselles de, 176 
Lauzun, Comte de, 251, 274-5, 291-9, 

300-12, 313-23 
Le Boults, Pere, 182 
Lefevre, Antoine, 196, 201 
Leopold, Archduke, 119, 169 
Lixein, Princesse de (see Phalsbourg), 

229, 230 
Longueville, Due de, 21, 132, 147, 154, 

165, 168, 211, 226 

— Duchesse de (Anne Genevieve de 
Bourbon), 18, 21, 82, 107-11, 147-8, 
152, 154, 157, 164, 167, 169, 171, 
176, 181, 228-9, 237 

— Mademoiselle de (see Nemours), 21, 
241 

Lorraine, Cardinal de, 18 

— Charles Due de, 16, 18, 193-4, 
277-8 

— Prince Charles de, 277-8 

— Fran9oise de (see Vendome), 43 

— Marguerite de (see Orleans), 16-19 

— Marie de (Mademoiselle de Guise), 
92, 250, 27s 

Louis XIII, King of France, 4-7, 10, 
12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 26, 27, 36, 37, 
51, 35-7, 59-64, 66-8, 72, 75, 76, 
78, 81, 86, 91, 95, 96, 100, 122, 
143, 226, 243, 257 

Louis XIV, King of France, 57, 58, 60, 
97, 100, 112, 118, 126, 128, 131, 133, 
136, 148, 150, 151, 153-4, 164-7, 
172, 175, 178-81, 185, 199, 200, 203, 
204-5, 209, 211, 215, 221, 228, 235, 
241, 243-5, 247-50, 253-4, 256-68, 
272, 274-5, 281-99, 301-4, 306-16, 
318-23 

Louvois, Marquis de, 292, 306, 317 



Lude, Comte du, 21, 292 

,, Mesdemoiselles du, 21 
Lulli, 287-8 
Lyonne, M. de, 306 

M 

Mademoiselle, La Grande (see Mont- 
pensier) 

— La Petite (Marie-Louise de France), 
285 

Maintenon, Madame de (Madame 
Scarron), 309, 315, 322, 323 

Malbasty, 32, 33 

Mancini, Laure, Duchesse de Mer- 
coeur, 140, 166-7 

— Marie, 247, 259 

— Marie-Anne (see Bouillon) 

— Olympe (see Soissons) 

— Paul, 198 

— Philippe, 274 

Marcillac, Prince de (see Due de la 

Rochefoucauld), 29, 31-5, 147, 154, 

165, 170 
Marie-Therese, Queen of France, 273, 

290, 294-7, 299, 301, 303-4, 306, 

311, 312, 322 
Marini, 80, 81 
Martel, Madame, 92 
Martinozzi, Anne-Marie, Princesse de 

Conti, 228 
Maulevrier, Marquis de, 109 
Maure, Comte de, 157, 158-9, 165, 218 

— Comtesse de, 157, 158, 216, 217 
Mazarin, Cardinal, 40, 67, 68, 98, 

99, 103-5, 107-10, 113, 119-22, 
125-34, 136-40, 146, 148-9, 151, 
153-4, 156, 158-9, 163-72, 174-8, 
180, 184, 186, 192-4, 197, 199, 200, 
204, 228, 242, 244-6, 249, 254, 259, 
261-2, 266, 271, 272, 274, 281, 314 
Medicis, Queen Marie de, 4-6, 11, 13, 
16, 19, 26, 58, 73, 86, 91, loi, 102, 

157 
Meilleraye, Marechal de la, 131, 132, 

133, 170 
Menage, 80, 279 
Mercoeur, Louis Due de, 43, 166, 167, 

175 
Merlin, Cure, 128-9 
Mesmes, President de, 136, 137 
Messimieux, Chevalier de, 262 
Mole, Mathieu, President, 136-8 
Moliere, 249, 287 
Monaco, Madame de, 292-3 
Monaldeschi, 235 
Mondevergue, M. de, 218 
Montausier, Marquis, then Due de, 84 

261, 301, 304-5 



328 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 



Montausier, Duchesse de, 85, 261, 262, 

291 
Montbazon, Due de, 27, 107 

— Duchesse de, 94, 107-10, 195, 223, 
279 

Montespan, Marquis de, 290, 291 

— Marquise de, 22, 217, 290, 296, 301, 
302, 309, 311, 315, 317,318, 322 

Montglat, Marquise de, 12, 87 

— Marquis de (Paul de Clermont), 87, 
122 

— Marquise de (Mademoiselle de 
Cheverny), 87, 89, 90, 122, 216 

Montmorency, Boutteville-, Comte de, 

30 

Madame de, 162 

Mademoiselle de {see Chatillon), 

162 

Montmorency, Henry Due de, 17, 36, 
257 

— Duchesse de (Maria-Felice Orsini), 
36, 37, 228, 257, 258 

Montpensier, Henry de Bourbon, Due 
de, 6, 46, 214 

— Marie de Bourbon, Duchesse de, 
Duchesse d'Orleans, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 
II 

— Anne - Marie - Louise d'Orleans, 
Duchesse de (La Grande Made- 
moiselle). Birth and Infancy, 1-15. 
Visit to Chantilly, 36-8. Travels 
in the West, 39-53. Hunting with 
Louis XHI, 56, 57. Ideas of Mar- 
riage, 57-60. Disillusion, 66. Taught 
by Corneille, 75-7. At the Hotel 
de Rambouillet, 82, Death of her 
Governess, and appointment of new 
lady, 87-91. Intercourse with Guise 
relations, 92-5. She grows up 
under the Regency, 99-1 11. Atten- 
tions of Prince Charles, 1 14-18. 
The Saujon Affair, 1 19-21 

Popularity in Paris, 130. Loss of 
a Friend, 140-3. Flight from Paris 
during the Fronde, 150-3. Return, 
166. Journey to Bordeaux, 170-2. 
Intrigues and Temptations, 177-9. 
Expedition to Orleans, 182-9. 
Triumphant return to Paris, 190-2. 
Affair of the Porte St. Antoine, 195- 
200. Affair of the Hotel de Ville, 
200-2. Flight from Paris, 206 

Exile and guests at Saint-Fargeau, 
21 1- 19. Quarrels with Monsieur, 
219-22. Visits to Touraine and to 
Forges, 223-9. Reception at Chilly, 
230-3. Visits to Queen Christina, 
233-6. Visit to Port Royal, 239-41. 



Return to Court, 242-7. Life at the 
Luxembourg, 247-50. Purchase of 
Eu, 250. With the Court in the 
East, 252-4. Visit to Dombes, 255, 
256. Visit to Madame de Mont- 
morency, 257. Visit to Chambord 
and Blois, 259-61. Travels in the 
South, 262-7. Death of her Father, 
267, 268. At the Spanish Mar- 
riage, 270-4. Salon in Paris, 275-9. 
Portrait oi\v^xifi\.{, 279-81. Second 
Exile, 283-6. Fancy for M. de 
Lauzun, 291-4. Adventure in the 
floods, 294-7. Marriage announced, 
300-7. The King's consent re- 
fused, 308-10. Despair, 310-12. 
Years of suspense, 313-18. Final 
quarrel with Lauzun, 320, 321. Last 
Illness and Death, 322 

Moret, Comte de (Antoine deBourbon), 
9, 17,51 

Motteville, Madame de, 100, 113, 117, 
121, 136, 145, 147, 150, 155-6, 162, 
178, 267, 271, 272, 273 

N 

Nemours, Charles-Amedee, Due de, 43, 
104, 163, 181, 182, 183, 184, 1S8-9, 
202, 232, 241 

— Duchesse de (Mademoiselle de Ven- 
dome), 43, 104, 183, ig6, 203, 287 

— Henry, Due de, 21, 241, 242 

— Duchesse de (Mademoiselle de 
Longueville), 241, 242 

Neubourg, Due de, 222 

Neuville, Mademoiselle de, 122 {see 

Frontenac) 
Neuvillette, Madame de la, 17 
Nogent, Madame de, 308 
Notre, Le, 318 

O 

Olonne, Madame d', 176, 249 

Orange, Princess of, 230 

Orleans, Gaston Due d' {Monsieur)^ 
5-15, 16, 17, 19-21, 38, 40-3, 45, 
49, 53, 54, 58, 59, 63, 64, 66-8, 73, 
78, 86, 88-92, 95, 97, 103, 105-6, 
109-12, 119-22, 129, 131-2, 137-8, 
146, 148-53, 161, 165, 168-9, 1 71-2, 
178-82, 184-5, 191-4, 196, 199-201, 
203-6, 208, 213, 219-24, 241, 247, 
255, 257-61, 267-8, 276, 285 

Orleans, Nicolas Due d', 12 

— Philippe Due d' {Monsieur), 268, 
272, 285, 286, 289, 290, 294-6, 298- 
9, 301, 303, 3". 321-3 



INDEX 



329 



Orleans, Duchesse d' (see Marguerite de 
Lorraine, A/adatfie), 41, 91, 105-6, 
129, 130, 148-50, 152, 171, 191, 203, 
210, 223, 259-61, 268, 275-7, 303 

— Duchesse d' (Marie de Bourbon, 
Madame: see Montpensier) 

— Duchesse d' (Henriette-Anne of 
England, Madame), 230, 285, 290, 
295, 296, 297-8 

— Duchesse d' (Charlotte Elisabeth of 
Bavaria), 315 

— Mademoiselle d', 260, 275 
Ormesson, Olivier d', 98, 129 
Ornano, Marechal d', 7 



Pajot, Marianne, 277 

Pascal, 239 

Paul, Vincent de, 126-7, 144, 192 

Paulet, Mademoiselle, 82 

Perefixe, Hardouin de (Archbishop of 

Paris), 289 
Phalsbourg, Princesse de {see Lixein), 

17. 19 
Pisani, Marquis de, 79 
Pons, Mademoiselle de, 94, 129 
Pontac, Madame de, 172, 262 
Pontchateau, Mademoiselle de, 20 
Pradon, 278 

Prefontaine, M. de, 175, 212, 220, 269 
Puylaurens, Antoine Due de, 9, il, 17, 

19, 20 

Q 

Quinault, 247, 278, 288 



Racine, 249, 278, 287 
Rambouillet, Marquis de, 79, 80 

— Marquise de, 74, 78-84, 91, 247, 
262 

— Mademoiselle de {see Montausier), 
48,84 

Ranee, Abbe de, 22, 108, 268, 317 

— Mademoiselle de, 22, 122 
Remecourt, Mademoiselle de, 176 
Remiremont, Madame de, I7j 18 
Retz, Cardinal de, 23, 99, 104-5, 

126-7, 131-6, 154, 157-9, 161, 166, 
168-9, 176, 180, 194, 196, 204, 238 
Richelieu, Cardinal de, 4, 6-8, I3-i5j 
16-20, 22-6, 28-30, 32-6, 38, 45-8, 
54-8, 61-8, 72, 74-5, 79, 81, 83, 
86-7, 92-4, 98-9, 104, no, 125, 
143-4, 224, 226, 239, 245, 323 

— Due de, 143, 224, 305 

— Duchesse de (Anne de Fors du 
Vigean), 143, 306 



Riviere, Abbe de la, 9, 117, 119, 120, 

121, 233 
Rochefort, Comte de, 304 
Rochefoucauld, Due de la, 31 

(56"(? Marcillac), 170, 172, 198,228 

— Duchesse de la (Mademoiselle de 

Liancourt), 31, 34-5 
Roger, Louison, 45 
Rohan, Due de, 167, 181, 182, 184, 196 
Roquelaure, Duchesse de (Mademoi- 
selle du Lude), 292 



Sable, Madame de, 82, 158 
Saint-Cyran, Abbe de, 239 
Saint-Etienne, M^re de, 29 
Saint-Georges, Marquise de, 12, 13, 

22, 37-8, 40, 45, 49, 87-9 
Saint -Joseph, Mere Madeleine de, loi 
Saint-Louis, Mademoiselle de, 40, 52, 

56, 88 
Saint-Luc, Marechal de, 102 
Saint-Remy, M. de, 276 
Saint-Simon, Due de, 286, 292, 311, 320 
Salebray, M, de, 249 
Saler, 221 

Saujon, M. de, 1 19-21, 147, 169, 170 
Savoy, Duke of, 254, 275, 287 

— Duchess of (Christine de France), 
12, 254 

Scudery, Mademoiselle de, 9, 82, 215, 
217, 247, 262, 279 

— Georges de, 82 
Segrais, 279, 303, 314, 315 
Seguier, Chancellor, 29, 36, 128, 135, 

136, 
Senece, Madame de, 151 
Sentinelli, Comte, 235 
Sevigne, Marquise de {see Chantal), 

216, 278, 286, 300, 302, 307, 311, 

312 

— Mademoiselle de, 85 
Sirot, Baron de, 189 

Soissons, Comte de (Louis de Bourbon), 
58, 59, 94, 164 

— Comtesse de, 59 

— — (Olympe Mancini), 246 
Sourdis, Marquis de, 158, 184, 186, 

189, 223 
Spain, PhiHp IV, King of, 262, 270, 273 
Sully, Due de, 44 

— Duchesse de, 135 6, 215 
Sweden, Queen Christina of, 233-6 



Tellier, Michel Le, 306 

Thianges, Marquise de, 217-19, 297 



330 A PRINCESS OF THE OLD WORLD 



Thou, Francois de, 64, 65, 172 
Tillieres, Comtesse de, 89 
Tremblay, M. dii, 35 
Tremouille, Madame de la, 150 
Treville, M. de, 67 

Turenne, Vicomte de, 169, 171, iSo, 
190, 191, 193-4, 198-9, 241, 281-3 

U 
Urfe, Honore d', 74 

V 

Valliere, Duchesse de la, 276, 286, 

296, 312, 317 
Valois, Due de, 203 

— Mademoiselle de, 275 
Vandy, M. de, 218, 219 

— Mademoiselle de, 216, 217, 218, 
261-2 

Vau, Le, 213 
Vaudemont, Prince de, 16 
Vendome, Cesar Due de, 7, 43, 96, 98, 
103, 105 



Vendome, Duchesse de, 43, 105 

— Mademoiselle de {see Nemours), 43, 
104 

Ventadour, Duchesse de, 216 
Viau, Theophile de, 36 
Vigean, M. du, 49, 145 

— Madame du, 48-50, 144 

— Mademoiselle du (see Richelieu), 143 

— Mademoiselle Marthe du, 48, 143-5, 
162, 317 

Vilaine, Marquis de, 185, 187 
Villeneuve, Mademoiselle de, 156 
Villeroy, Marechal de, 132, 295, 303 
Voiture, 80 

W 

Wilthz, Comte de, 18 

Y 

Yeres, Abbesse d' (Claire -Diane 

d' Angennes), 84, 85, 203 
York, James Duke of, 165, 194, 230, 

241 



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